Clever, insightful and riven with a deep understanding of the world today, this book has all the hallmarks of a modern classic. It was brilliantly written and had engaging characters who felt fully three dimensional.

A difficult story to read. A woman who is the daughter of immigrants who works in a high intensity law firm, is sexually assaulted. Thanks for the early copy for a review.

I wasn't sure how I would find this book initially, however I really think the author did a great job at examining sexual assault, with the mental and physical toll that takes on a person as well as their other relationships. This book was not an easy read but it was done so well I have to commend the author for the way they handled topics such as sexism and racism. I wouldn't say this book is for everyone because of the themes, however if those things don't trigger you then I think you definitely give this a go.

Wow - funny, insightful, powerful, sad, scary, moving.
I quoted hilarious / cringe scenes to my friends, highlighted copious clever / meaningful lines about relationships, growing up, society, laughed and cried.
The contemporary, rom com style of the writing made a tough subject readable, I was keen to keep opening the book despite such a difficult topic which in other hands would have potentially been too depressing - and it felt accessible and real.
I loved it, it will stay with me for a long time - really powerful. Highly recommended. Thanks to Netgalley & publishers for the opportunity to read.

I loved this debut!

Ela Lee has a way with words that makes the reader feel traumatised yet seen all at once. Her main character Ceyda, is struggling not just with being young and attempting to assimilate into a majority white country as someone of mixed heritage, but she's also struggling with her very corporate work environment.

I loved the journey we took with Ceyda throughout the novel. It's something that is experienced by many who will never voice what happened to them and oftentimes we can live in a state of denial until we 'wake up'. I loved how Ela also made this even moreso rooted in reality through the

I also loved Ceyda's relationship with her parents and how over time she came to understand her Omma depsite not wholly agreeing with her actions in dealing with the knowledge of Jade's assault.

I loved the way Ceyda and Kit's relationship unfolded. I feel like normally I'd be reaching through the book to shake Jade for letting so much slide but there was just something in her writing that meant she didn't need that yet but that section with her and Baba moving boxes, broke me.

Everyone should read this, not to live through the trauma of what happened to Ceyda, but to live through the aftermath with her.

I don’t know quite what I expected going into Jaded, only that it wasn’t this powerhouse of emotion, shrewd commentary and uncomfortable exposee of the aggressions (micro and macro, passive and active) that women face in the world. These are showcased through Jade (whose real name is Ceyda, but it seems that no one can spell or pronounce that), a young mixed race British-Turkish-Korean who is sexually assaulted by a colleague and discovers just how many hurdles there are between her and ‘justice’ (e.g. a shred of accountability and restoration).

Whilst working at a (predictably, majority male, majority white) law firm in London, Jade attends a dinner at which not only is one of the major directors of the firm behaving deeply inappropriately towards her (not allowing her to say no to alcohol, placing hands on her and suggesting that she come and stay with him), which ends in her being blackout drunk and escaping the party. But, after being helped home by another colleague, she wakes up feeling anxious and confused, with no memory and a deep, gnawing sense of dread. She spends the next days and weeks trying to peer through the haze to piece together what happened that night - and the impact it will have on her life from here on.

She turns to her boyfriend, Kit, for support and whilst he initially seems kind and supportive, as the story unfolds we learn slivers of information from past and present that highlight his total lack of cultural sensitivity, combined with virtue signaling and ‘remaining neutral’ as a means of ‘diffusing’ tension.

Whilst evidently the central event of this book is the sexual assault / rape that Ceyda suffers, the narrative also does a brilliant job of slipping in regular ‘throw away’ comments from characters (very much not just Kit!) which highlight just how ignorantly cavalier people can be with their casual xenophobia, how quickly they dismiss systems of oppression, or become more interested in white saviorism than actually challenging structural inequality or addressing their own biases.

This is a story of identity, politics, privilege, oppression, misogyny and feminism and I found it to be deeply moving, scream-inducingly aggravating and totally devastating - all whilst remaining accessible (obviously trigger warnings allowing!) and engaging throughout. Am so grateful for having been able to read this, and I highly highly recommend it.

Jaded is an incredibly heartfelt novel that follows Jade, a young professional, who is sexually assaulted by an acquaintance. It cleverly unfolds through the act and beyond, taking the reader on a journey of realisation that the pieces of her life are shattering, to the pieces being put back together. It cleverly encompasses many themes that seep through cleverly, subtly at first, and later in the novel becoming an active focus. It evokes strong emotions as it delves into trauma, racism, microaggressions and self-compassion. A truly enveloping read.
With many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, who shared an advance copy in exchange for this honest review.

Upon first seeing Jaded, I wondered if I should expose myself to another sexual assault narrative. These are heavy reading, and a reader is never sure just how much they will be affected by it. And yet, in this time of recognising sexual assault and keeping perpetrators accountable, every exploration of various milieus, environments, and cultures, is important.

Jaded explores the responses and cultures around the sexual assault of a young British-Turkish-Korean attorney. How does woke, young adult, corporate culture react when they are in direct proximity to sexism, racism, and classism? Can men who claim to be feminist put their money where their mouths are when it is time to speak up?

In a masterly complex novel, Ela Lee deftly combines the major conflict above, with further exploration of relationships, parent-child conflict, xenophobia, virtue signalling, privilege, and recovery. Of note, events and dialogues are painfully accurate - even Jade/Ceyda’s discussion of her attempts at “wellness culture”. Even though I have little in common with Ceyda - besides our age and sex - Lee’s writing enables a indelible feeling of connection with her protagonist. I expect Jaded will reach a wide audience to great applause, and quite likely be nominated for a prize or two. I certainly recommend it.

A rather bleak book, for which I need to issue a strong trigger warning for rape. It's mainly notable for its central character's Korean-Turkish family background, which is explored in detail as Ceyda (Starbucks name: Jade) and her posh, White English partner Kit, interact with her parents. Ceyda works in a big law firm and puts everything into it while dealing with constant microaggressions from colleagues and Kit's friendship group which are slowly revealed through the book. Thank goodness she has her best friends, Adele and Eve.

Jade holds everything in firm control and does it all right until, blind drunk, a collegue she previously liked coerces her ito a taxi and rapes her after a business event where even the big boss is pawing at her. The rest of the book explores her gradual realisation of what happened and the inevitable conclusions from this being done to a young woman of multiple heritage in a large, White, male law firm. The repercussions are strong, realistically, and "feminist", "anti-racist" Kit shows his true colours.

The book explores consent, complicit racism and City company culture and it has power, but would be very triggering for many and I don't think the book description of "sexual assault" really covers that.

A book that will restart the important topic of how we need to talk about trauma, silence will not make the situation better if anything makes it 100% worse. Difficult topics to read about but a book that needs to be written.

Are you in the mood to feel some feminine rage?

We follow Ceyda, or ‘Jade’ for the ease of her peers as she navigates what should be her idillic life. Perfect boyfriend, enviable career. Until one night the actions of another lead her reeling, questioning everything about who she is and the actions of those closest to her in the process.

Jaded is a heartbreaking, emotional book that honestly everyone should read. I know it will stay with me for a long time.


*please ensure you check trigger warnings in advance of reading this book.

Thank you to Random House for the ARC.

Jaded was one of my favourite reads of 2023. The book follows Jade, a young lawyer, who after a company event where she was inebriated, starts to piece together the events of the night that have been blocked out of her memory and realises she’s been sexually assaulted by a colleague.

The book was so tender and delicate considering the topic, you really felt everything Jade was going through, including the aftermath of the event and as a line is drawn in the sand between Jade and the perpetrator, where the people in her life fall on either side of that line.

The ending, while heartbreaking, felt very realistic and didn’t shy away from the unfortunate reality that many survivors face.

This book was an easy 5 stars for me.

There have been numerous books in the last decade or so dealing with issues around rape, sexual assault and non-consent: this is perhaps one of the most emotionally absorbing for me.

I found Jade an immediately engaging narrator: in her mid-twenties, forging a career at a City law firm and in love with Kit - but there are subtle red flags that we identify even while Jade tries to blind herself to them. Not least is her mixed-race status and the way Kit tramples over the sensitivities of her Turkish father and Korean mother, and Jade's own performative ways of being with her wealthy, white boyfriend.

There's a lot going on in this book and it's to Lees's credit that it all holds together from the rape and aftermath plot, the increasing focus on race as a complicated status, the exposure of male 'feminism' as virtue signalling, struggles with corporate culture (and the scenes of the self-congratulatory EDI group are hilariously snarky!), as well as intergenerational relationships. All of these are treated in sophisticated ways with no easy arcs or happy redemption narratives. The relationship between Jade and her mother feels especially troubling and all the more realistic for that very reason.

I think one of the important qualities for me is the sense of authenticity - only once was there a convenient plot device (Suzie) and even then the book tried to justify its own coincidence by tackling it in a self-referential way.

This isn't a conspicuously 'literary' book in terms of style or form - but it's emotionally mature and utterly convincing. Jade doesn't always make wise decisions but she's all the more human for that reason. And it's worth mentioning the supporting characters of Adele and Jade's parents are superbly drawn.

Nuanced and, in places, rightfully enraging, this is nicely complementary to [book:Prima Facie|181849804] but still feels like a book which has important things of its own to say.

I found this story moving on so many levels.Jade's experiences and compromises with her long term boyfriend resonated with me. As a loving daughter of a Korean mother and Turkish father she managed to embrace the best of both cultures. Her work experiences left one feeling frustrated that a women's lot is still tough no matter how successful or hard working one is. This book and the issues it raises will stay with me a long time.Beautifully written and engaging

I’ve been looking forward to reading Jaded for a while after reading many glowing reviews and it was just as brilliant as I’d expected - plus so much more. Jaded is a razor sharp, moving, intelligent, anger-inducing and heart wrenching novel that looks at issues of class, race, gender and the aftermath of trauma with a direct yet beautifully nuanced approach. I found myself feeling completely devastated by the way main character Jade is treated by some of the people in her life and at her job as a corporate lawyer, after a life altering assault. I have rarely felt such viscerally strong empathy and deep connection to a character. The way Jade’s attack and the aftermath is dealt with by the author is saddening and painful to read, however it feels brutally accurate and demonstrates perfectly the messiness and complications that women have to cope with in today’s society. It is very very rarely as simple as reporting a sexual assault and the perpetrator being arrested and prosecuted. There is no ‘right’ way for a victim to behave and no rule book on what steps to take. Everyone is different and there are so many completely valid reactions that are not always understood. The plethora of emotions and behaviours Jade finds herself experiencing is heartbreaking but also such a stunningly powerful example of the failings of our justice system and the power disparity in the corporate world when it comes to gender, race and perceived social class.

I read Jaded pretty much nonstop for two days, completely unable to tear myself away from this incisive and thoughtfully provocative story. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Jaded simply has to be one of THE books of 2024. It is outstanding. I couldn’t recommend it more highly and I already know it will be one of my favourites of the year.This is a novel you truly do not want to miss out on and one you won’t forget.

Thank you to the author, Random House UK, Harvill Secker and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This debut novel was heartbreaking and gut-wrenching on so many levels: identity politics, racism, gender, sexism, misogyny, class and privilege - and the most supreme examples of gaslighting I've seen recently. The main character and narrator Jade/Ceyda is a young mixed-race woman with a prestigious career as a lawyer with one of the big firms in London. At a work event, she (unwillingly) gets very drunk and wakes up the next morning trying to work out how she got home. Slowly she comes to the realization that she is a victim of sexual assault by a senior colleague, and her life becomes filled with anxiety and fear, suffering flashbacks and not knowing where to turn. She does end up reporting the incident to HR, but finds they expect her silence in exchange for an enormous bonus and NDA. She cannot turn to her parents, who sacrificed everything to give her a start in her career, and her hot, rich, white boyfriend is obnoxiously oblivious and makes each utterance of her pain about himself, or puts it off as her being dramatic or betraying him. There are no easy answers here, and the book ends without there being a neat and tidy resolution - but that is much more true to the situation than anything else.

I really, really struggled with this book mainly because I found that the writing was all over the place. It took a very, very long time for the story to actually get going.

I felt like so many other things happened in this book and they all took away the gravity of Jade's situation and the essence from the actual story. I really didn't care for the corporate talk and found that the book dragged in various parts.

As for Jade's character, even after the sexual assault, she continued to drink heavily without a single thought of what had happened to her in a drunk state. Too much time was spent focused on Jade's friends and I really couldn't connect to any of the characters.

I was also disappointed with the ending as I found it to be too rushed.

Jaded is the debut novel by British-Korean-Turkish author Ela Lee, and it comes with a lot of hype. I requested it a few months ago on Netgalley after reading the synopsis and being sold on the City lawyer #MeToo angle, and it’s recently been mentioned in the same breath as the Women’s Prize. I’m happy to say it lived up to the advance praise, I loved it and inhaled it over a couple of days.

Jade (real Ceyda, Starbucks name Jade) is a young mixed race woman with a prestigious career as a City lawyer with one of the big firms and a hot, rich, white boyfriend Kit.

Life changes utterly for Jade when she unwittingly (and unwillingly) gets very drunk on a work night out and wakes up the next morning trying to piece together how she got home, the realisation dawning on her that she has been assaulted. Caught between her parents who don’t understand, her boyfriend who feels betrayed and the firm who expect her silence, Jade begins to unravel.

With themes of identity, class, privilege, expectation and complicity explored, Jaded is one of those novels where you find yourself constantly questioning what you would do in Jade’s situation. There are no easy answers and I liked that this wasn’t a story with a linear arc of redemption.

I worked for one of the big City firms in my twenties and could relate to a lot of what Jade describes - it made me somewhat despair that not much has changed despite the author being fifteen years younger than me.

An excellent, thought-provoking read that would make a good book club pick. Content warning for rape/sexual assault (not a spoiler, it’s in the blurb). 4/5⭐️

*Many thanks to @harvillsecker for the advance copy via @netgalley. James was published this week. As always, this is an honest review.

Heartbreaking, evocative and immensely relatable.
As a working class, mixed race woman in South London, the gender, socioeconomic and racial politics of this novel were super on point and correlated with lots of my own experiences. It was like reading my own thoughts back to me at times (which made it all the more poignant).

The ending is really unsatisfying but that’s more a comment on society rather than the writer as it’s the only real, true ending that would have made sense, without being a sad but hopeful flight of fancy.

I’d like to thank the author for Ceyda Kayaoǧlu as she helped me process some of my thoughts and conflicts about my past experiences and deal with my own Kit Campbell-breakup. Ela Lee was my own Adele and Eve.

This was exactly the book I needed right now.

Thanks also to NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for a review.

Here it is, my first five star review of the year and it is for a debut novel.
Ela Lee is a British author with Korean and Turkish heritage and was a lawyer in the City Of London. Main character and narrator Jade has a Korean mother and Turkish father and is a lawyer in the City. There’s obvious elements of the “Write what you know” mantra here but I hope that most of this novel’s events come from the author’s imagination as you really wouldn’t wish the challenges and predicaments Jade faces on anybody.
Jade’s real name is Ceyda. She refers to “Jade” as her ‘Starbucks name’ simplified so it can be called out by a barista felt-penning it onto a cup in the coffee shop. This is one of the ongoing things she feels she has to do to fit in. She has what would be deemed a good job within her law firm but they are worked so hard with scant respect for a personal life. And as they are expected to work hard they are also expected to play hard when the company deems it. At a firm’s event Jade drinks too much and cannot remember how she got home. As she begins to piece things together something feels very off.
I’ve given the issue of consent five stars before for the outstanding legal thriller by Kia Abdullah “Truth Be Told” (2020). There the emphasis was on the handling of the case here it is focused on the reactions of one person and the rug is continually pulled away from Jade in this very impressive but so challenging work.
It starts off almost in rom-com territory and morphs into a biting examination not just of consent but of race and power within work settings and relationships and yet, even when at its darkest, the author is able to inject dark humour very effectively. Characterisation is strong, you will totally root for Jade, even when questioning the route she seems to be following, the reader may not agree with her every decision but will be convinced as to why that decision has been made. Her parents are vividly brought to life and their sacrifices, confusion and extreme good nature comes across so well and will linger long after the book is finished. Also lingering long will be the quandaries the author, through her main character, puts the reader into. So much is challenged, it makes for difficult reading at times for everyone. As a white male I was often squirming and some may find the events depicted triggering and not get through it.
But, if you can stick with the author’s challenges, handled in such a skilful way, with understanding, often with wit, sometimes with disdain and a shrug and also with fury, in fact a range of techniques which keeps the reader totally involved and adds much richness and certainly complexity to the novel then you are in for a highly memorable reading experience.
Jaded is published on the 8th February in the UK by Harvil Secker in hardback and in an e-book version by Vintage Digital. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.