Book Review: Outside the Men’s Room by Rose Gonsoulin

I received a copy of Outside the Men’s Room by Rose Gonsoulin in exchange for an honest review. Summary: Who hasn’t wanted to tell the boss he’s a jerk and quit on the spot? It’s the principle, right? Yet most people never do it. They swallow their pride and either suck it up or find another job. Except Sidney Sinclair, a hard-working but naïve young engineer entering the work place when college educated women were still a novelty item. It was a time when they were graduating in droves, like a bumper crop of ripe corn, flooding the market with their career aspirations. But can girls raised on Chatty Cathy and the Dating Game succeed in a man’s world? After facing blatant discrimination, Sidney resorts to deception to break into the good ole boy’s club of engineering and construction. Once inside she’s thwarted at every turn—open hostility, intentional sabotage, and worse, an attraction to the man who holds the reins to her career. Was Sidney chasing a dream, or just running from her fears? Can she survive the traps and land mines waiting for her in a man’s world, or will she succumb to the goons who want her out of the way? Set in the early 1980’s in Houston this retro chick lit novel has all the native nuances of living in the Bayou City at a time when many young women were caught between two worlds—Work and Love. Review: I was looking forward to reading this book because it was described as retro chick lit, and I thought that was pretty cool; something different. I struggled to get into the story though, and had a hard time connecting with any of the characters. I almost wonder if the story would have started with Sidney and focused more on her throughout the way if my reading experience would have been better, as I just could not identify with the men. Maybe it didn’t help that I’m not from the era either, even though I thought it would be interesting to read about. I’m bummed that I couldn’t make a connection to this book, but sometimes one is just not for you! 2.5 stars