Valley Verified

December 1, 2023
A chance meeting at a fashion industry event leads Zoe Zeng to trade New York City for Silicon Valley to become VP of marketing at a fashion app start-up. Zoe knows nothing about tech, but she knows fashion and is hoping this jump will lead her to the success she's been working so hard for. After successfully implementing a new marketing campaign, Zoe feels like her Prada heels might have a place in the Patagonia-wearing tech industry. But Silicon Valley is just as cutthroat as the New York fashion world, and soon after her success, Zoe is betrayed when a nasty article about her is published in Valley Verified, the gossip site for tech insiders. Can a fashion maven overcome the machinations of sexist tech bros? Brimming with necessary discussion on sexism and gender bias in the tech industry, and with a character that many readers will relate to, Zhao's latest (after The Fraud Squad, 2023) is a contemporary novel that will appeal to STEM and fashion girlies alike. Add in the cute office love story and romance readers will be satisfied too.

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December 18, 2023
Zhao (The Fraud Squad) returns with a mediocre story of an emerging fashion writer who faces sexism after pivoting to the tech industry. Zoe Zeng toils at a second-tier New York City fashion magazine for low pay. At a clothing launch, she meets Bill, the CEO of a startup called Fit-Pick, and he offers her a marketing job. The app allows users to post two choices for an outfit and have others vote to see which they prefer. Zoe appreciates the democratic and empowering ethos behind Fit-Pick—users are meant to develop confidence in their fashion choices based on encouragement from others, rather than blindly follow queues from influencers—and she decides to leave New York for the higher paying role in Silicon Valley. There, under pressure to create a marketing plan that will impress the company’s top investor, Zoe unwisely recruits a group of influencers to promote the app. The strategy backfires after one of the influencers and Fit-Pick are called out for posts with doctored images, and the blame falls on Zoe. The character work is paint-by-numbers—Bill is a stereotypical sexist bro who cuts corners to wow investors, and the firm’s nerdy male coders bully Zoe—and the happy ending feels implausible. There’s not much here to recommend. Agent: Alex Rice, CAA.

January 1, 2024
Tech, but make it fashion. Zoe Zeng is a progressive fashionista, frustrated that her job as junior fashion writer at Chic magazine requires her so often to regurgitate mainstream content, when she'd rather write about size inclusivity or women with alopecia. So when a slick young tech guy from Silicon Valley named Bill Lawrence offers her the role as VP of Marketing at his start-up, she moves across the country to try something new. The app is called FitPick, and it allows users to crowd-source opinions on two competing outfits in hopes of providing them a "safe space to explore their style." Whether such a space could be maintained in the wilds of the internet is open to question, but Zoe digs the concept and proves to be a dab hand at marketing. Unfortunately, she misses many clues that Bill is a sleaze who cares nothing for FitPick's stated philosophy. Zhao is intent on casting Zoe as a knowing champion of those on the margins, with the personal experience of being Chinese American and not straight-sized. So her na�vet� around Bill and her quickness to judge female COO Lillian Mariko as a nemesis are surprising. When FitPick is written up positively on the infamous gossip website ValleyVerified, things are looking up for the team. But the success of the app and a burgeoning office romance are about to come crashing down on Zoe, upending many of her assumptions and giving her her biggest challenge yet. A lively juxtaposition of two distinct and self-serious worlds.

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