How Can I Make My Smile Prettier

Smile and Look Pretty

“[A] 9 to 5 for the Instagram generation... Darkly funny and bitingly modern.” —Andrea Bartz, author of Reese’s Book Club Pick We Were Never Here HIGHLY ANTICIPATED BY FORTUNE ⋅ FEMINIST BOOK CLUB ⋅ THE NERD DAILY ⋅ BOOKISH ⋅ MOTHERLY What happens when four assistants risk everything to say enough is enough? Best friends Cate, Lauren, Olivia and Max are overworked and underpaid assistants to some of the most powerful people in the entertainment industries. Like the assistants who came before them, the women know they have to pay their dues and abide the demeaning tasks and verbal abuse from their bosses in order to climb the ladders to their dream jobs. But as they are passed over for promotions and the toxic office environments reach a breaking point, the women secretly start an anonymous blog detailing their experiences, which snowballs into hundreds of others coming forward with stories of their own. Confronted with newfound viral fame and the possibility of their identities being revealed, the assistants have to contend with the life-changing consequences of speaking out against those who refuse to share the power.

Smile Pretty and Say Jesus

In March 1987, the Reverend Jerry Falwell and the national news media found themselves in rare agreement: Jim Bakker, the charismatic, cash-hungry televangelist, was an accomplished sinner but a rather unconvincing penitent. The story had just broken that Bakker had fornicated with Jessica Hahn, a New York church secretary, and then tried to pay her off with $256,000. Once exposed, Bakker weepily begged Falwell to help him steer his ministry through the scandal. Falwell assented--but then demanded Bakker's resignation when he learned that the Hahn affair only hinted at Bakker's profligacy. The fight was on, and those stale jokes were born again: PTL, the acronym of Bakker's $172 million enterprise, stood not for "Praise the Lord" or "People That Love" but for "Pass the Loot" or "Pay the Lady." Veteran journalist Hunter James covered the story for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from the first report of Bakker's double life until eight chaotic months later when the unwelcome Falwell left the bankrupt ministry in South Carolina and went home for good to his own church in Lynchburg, Virginia. Smile Pretty and Say Jesus is James's wry, personal account of the struggle for control of the PTL enterprise, which included a satellite network and a 2,300-acre theme park, Heritage USA. James's book is valuable for the important distinctions it makes between Pentecostals and Baptist fundamentalists and for its explanation of the "prosperity gospel" Bakker and his wife, Tammy Faye, professed. Combining straightforward reportage with human interest sketches and profiles, the book is also the most insightful to date on the attitudes and motives of the principal figures involved in the debacle.

You Can Be What You Want to Be