Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This is another novel in the vein of Erasure and Yellowface that aims to expose the prejudices behind our 'objective' art forms - Jay here turns her attention towards the theatre world. Unfortunately it doesn't quite stand up to the heights of Yellowface - I found the prose quite stilted in places and there were some particularly frustrating 'why can't those two characters just TALK to each other' moments. However, the inherent racism in UK theatre was well-explored and it's definitely a topic that needs addressing.

Thank you for granting me early access to this gorgeous book.
Relegobile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo—‘Eddie’ to friends—is a fierce, sharp-witted playwright who graduates top of her class with a script so brilliant it practically glows. But there’s a catch: no one in the industry wants to touch it. After trying everything, including a not-so-subtle name change, Eddie finds the door still slammed shut because, surprise, her foot—Black, female, and determined—isn't what they’re looking for. Enter Hugo Lawrence Smith, a trust-fund kid with about as much interest in law as a fish has in hiking. Bored of life in court, he wants the thrill of the theatre and isn’t above using his privilege to get it. Together, they hatch a deliciously risky plan: Hugo will play frontman to Eddie's genius, and when their play inevitably dazzles, they’ll pull back the curtain on the industry’s rampant racism and hypocrisy. Simple, right?

What unfolds, though, is anything but predictable. I started this expecting a familiar tune, something close to Yellowface by R. F. Kuang, but this story went above and beyond. It’s witty, furious, smart, and stuffed with sharp twists that kept me guessing and laughing. Jay’s writing feels alive, and this was a joyride of a read from start to finish.

The basis for this book is a good idea, though unfortunately its not so well told, and it doesn't have enough originality to keep me reading.

The Grand Scheme of Things offers such a promising premise, but unfortunately falls short in its execution to me. The beginning was great - I loved Eddie's POV of her showing us her struggles and her frustration at the racism she experienced of trying to get her play published - but then it just goes downwards from there. I felt that the focus on 'exposing racism in theater,' which to me was the whole point of this book, got overshadowed by Eddie and Hugo's personal conflicts and drama, and dilutes the core message of this book even until the end.

A very different but gripping story. The characters were fab. I enjoyed the way it went.

Thank you to the author, publishers and netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

DNF. I struggled with this one and I think it was due to the tense through which the author opted to tell the story. It's original, you can certainly give it that, and I was really interested in the subject. But the novel has a second tense approach to the narrative and I felt it just moved a bit too slowly for my taste - even for literary fiction. This is a book that I might come back to in the future (I'd like to read a few other reviews of this book and see whether it's worth continuing on for), but it's just not for me right now.

This books begs to ask: if you lie, how far will you take it? Are you ready to face everything that comes (or doesn’t) with it?
The writing mostly flows well and the plot kept me engaged. I mostly felt that the characters had depth and weren’t flat or one dimensional. I also really liked how the author chose to share the story from Eddie and Hugo’s POV.
If you’ve read and loved Yellowface, you might enjoy this as the theme is similar. I, personally, didn’t enjoy Yellowface as much as I enjoyed this— crazy, I know!
Thank you for the free ARC!

Highly enjoyable novel about Naledi/Eddie, a Black British playwright trying to get her big break, but not getting any luck. Things change when she meets posh and suave Hugo in a coffee shop and they come up with a clever plan to get Naledi's play onto the stage and expose the theatre world's racism.
I wasn't sure about this initially, but it ended up being a clever and enjoyable novel. I thought the end - no spoilers, but when a character gets romantically involved with another - a bit less interesting, but it was well written, sarcastic and intelligent.

Free ARC sent by Netgalley.

I was sent an advance proof copy of The Grand Scheme of Things by Warona Jay to read and review by NetGalley. This novel highlights a lot of issues in the theatre, film and publishing world regarding women and especially women of colour. These issues can easily be transferred to many, if not most occupations. At times I felt that things were getting a little too worthy, as if the reader hadn’t actually taken in the intrinsic point of the book. That aside, this is a well-structured and well written novel with quite vivid characters and a good level of description. I can’t say I particularly warmed to any of the characters as such but was very interested in what they had to say. A quite enlightening and important book.

The premise of this book grabbed me but I feel like it was a little flat towards the end for me.

From the beginning I was hooked. I couldn’t wait to see the deception and lies unravel and how they would deal with the fault out of their decisions.

The writing style was easy and hooked me. I felt like I knew what was going on.

I do however feel like this book has a deeper meaning that I seemed to fail to grasp.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read more of Warona.

Eddie, full name Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo, is a playwright with a glittering university career, but she's failing to get her provocative play in with any agents, especially as it's highly political and it's Brexit time. Comes a chance encounter with Whiter-than-White, well-connected Establishment boy, Hugo Lawrence Smith, whose cousin is even *that* author who became famous for their, ahem, space opera series and can now click her fingers and get a play in the West End. Can Eddie persuade Hugo to pretend to have written her play and get it to the places where her name can't open the doors? Well, turns out yes. But there are complications, in the form of the woman, Nahid, who gets to direct the play, her background and her mutual attraction with Hugo ... This is really well-plotted and definitely believeable, but where it fell down in my eyes was that in the two narrative strands, from Eddie and Hugo's points of view, their voices weren't really differentiated very much in terms of the way they "spoke" their narratives, whereas I'd have expected that given their different backgrounds, classes and experiences. Also, half the narrative is given to the headspace of the mediocre White man (though that might be a satirical point) and he doesn't seem to learn much or move from his impressively woke starting position. So not an entire success but I will be interested to see what this author does next and it's a strong start.

My blog review published 25 September: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2024/09/25/covid-netgalley-reading-roundup-warona-jay-jack-strange-and-chandra-clarke/

Potent clash between race and elitism

Told in a slightly overblown first and second person narrative, the novel details a Black writer's attempt to subvert the possibly elitist bastions of British theatre by presenting her racially-charged work in a white, cis male alter ego, roping in a complete stranger as her avatar. The latest in a string of novels with successful writers masquerading or being masqueraded, The Grand Scheme of Things starts off with a strong punch but veers into soap opera before coming to what might be only one of all possible denouements. I'm a fan of fairy tales, but this is perhaps one fairy tale too far, with almost everyone getting what they want, bar one romance.

Keeping this spoiler free, there is a moment when a key deceptive romance is questioned for its optics when the romance behind it isn't. There's just something missing, perhaps an attention to detail that might have picked up on some, to my reading at least, leaden sentences full of allusion and hyperbole that land on the page with an inauthenticity. Well plotted but perhaps the characters are a little too self-aware in some areas, not at all in others.

Three stars.

The Grand Scheme of Things follows Naledi, a playwright struggling to gain recognition for her work. Frustrated by perceived bias in the theatre world, she submits her script to the prestigious Wentworth Agency under a pseudonym. Upon meeting her, agent Helen Hunter recognizes Naledi's talent, but Naledi feels her name holds her back.

Desperate to expose the industry’s biases, Naledi enlists the help of acquaintance Hugo Lawrence Smith, asking him to claim the play as his own. When the play unexpectedly wins a prestigious award, the situation spirals out of control, putting Naledi's career—and her integrity—at risk.

The story skillfully weaves a sharp narrative with deeper character exploration, capturing the complexities of ambition, identity, and the pursuit of artistic recognition. Naledi’s journey is both thought-provoking and engaging, making for a compelling read.

http://thesecretbookreview.co.uk

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.


The Grand Scheme of Things by Warona Jay is a novel that tells the story of two friends that work to expose the world of theatre.

Although the scheme is worthwhile, the unforeseen events that follow may have more negatives than positives.

The story centres around Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo known as Eddie, who is the daughter of divorced parents from Botswana, who after graduating from the top drama university in London, is unable to get her play published because of her race.

The only time she got in the door was when she used an English name but shortly after coming clean it got turned down,

Enter Hugo, a bored privileged white male who is trapped doing Law because that is what his family does.

This led to Eddie and Hugo to submit the play into the same agency with obvious results for the novel.

As a contemporary issue novel I am trying to work out if the novel worked as that was the main point of the book.

Which I do have a few issues with.

Firstly the novel used Brexit as a basis for the play in the book so was set solidly in time as the book starts shortly before the 2016 referendum giving the whole situation at the time.

This then leads onto a description of an author who has written a story set in space where a kid goes to school and there are quizzes online to decide which school you would be in.

Even though I know what happens in the story is I can not see the point, of this character at all as the story would have worked just as well without her,

While the story was set up to show how race affects the theatre industry Eddie had one advantage of living in London with one very minor character coming from Liverpool with a description of her accent that felt odd.

Maybe it would have been fine in most other novels but a story about identity should be held to a higher standard than a novel not having an identity at the heart of its story.


Having said that The Grand Scheme of Things by Warona Jay is an interesting novel to start discussions of privilege however, it could have been a little less clunky in the story telling, however it still works as a novel for the right reader.

A story of deceit, prejudice and assumptions, focused on Nadeli/Eddie's extreme talent and misplaced ambitions. When Eddie gets a straight white male acquaintance to front her ground-breaking new play, she gets more than she bargained for and less than she wanted.

Warona Jay tells a tight story of the publishing and theatre world, and the impact Eddie's actions have on the world and relationships around her. For me it was a bit too long and could have been done more concisely, and it seems to peter out towards the end as a result. I couldn't sympathise with the characters who were mostly unpleasant, and it starts from a premise of Eddie being too ready to give up on her dream, which sets the whole thing in motion.

I loved this book! The author provides a deep and creative insight into many topical issues.

Themes such as romantic relationships, friendships, family connections, society, corporate racism, class differences are all a strong feature!

The characters are diverse and their relationships continually change as the plot evolves. That felt very realistic. It was also difficult to fathom the logic of many decisions taken by the main characters. I suppose that is disappointingly realistic too.

All in all, I felt a great deal of empathy for the main characters as they each pursued different ideals and interacted with each other. Proof that life is not fair was prominent throughout!

The author must be pleased with producing such a thought-provoking novel.
I look forward to reading more books by Warona Jay
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49954981.Warona_Jay

#NetGalley

Eddie is a gifted playwright. However, living as a Black, queer woman in a racist society means the agency she wants to represent her brilliant debut play thinks her face doesn't fit. Enter Hugo. After a chance encounter at a coffee shop, Eddie meets the person who she decides will be the perfect face of her play. Though they technically inhabit the same world, their experiences have never overlapped. And so the deception begins.

The characterisation in The Grand Scheme of Things is clear and crisp. It does however alternate chapters with different POVs where it is not always immediately obvious which protagonist is narrating because they refer to each other as "you". As a reader who loves the theatre, this book really opened my eyes to the other side of the stage - what are all the things that happen in the lead-up to opening night?

I could barely get through the first 50 pages of this if I'm honest. The writing does not have its own unique quality and the premise isn't that original - it's similar to the Blazing World and Yellowface. Unfortunately the writing needs to be better if we're treading similar ground.

What a fascinating story of intrigue. As unlikely friends hatch a scheme to expose the theatre world, they get themselves in a twist. Beautifully written from the vantage point of the various characters, The Grand Scheme of Things by Warona Jay is a joy to read. Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moraukgomo, an aspiring playwright, and Hugo Lawrence Smith. looking for a way out of the corporate world go on a mission to expose the theatre world for its racism. In the pursuit of a laudable cause their reputations and friendship are tested. This is a page turner!

Well this was a bit of an illustration in deception, and how it can cascade and spiral. I kept going back to the old adage, what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive... which I think fits very well here. We start with Eddie, or Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo to give her her proper given name. She is a graduate of creative writing and, when we first meet her, she is finishing off writing her first play. She then submits said play and has rejection after rejection. She starts to think her "exotic" name could be a barrier so she resubmits under a "straight white male" name and gets to interview stage. It is then that she receives the rejection.
But a chance meeting with Hugo Lawrence-Smith in a coffee shop becomes the seed for an idea. Double barrelled, posh, well educated, law degree, charismatic, and very very white! Could he really be her saviour? His name, his persona, coupled with her play... just to see if it works? They plan to just see how far they can go and then expose the industry. But when it wins an award, "Hugo" wins an award, things start to get complicated and they have to continue the charade.
This book hurt me as I do believe that this sort of prejudice does indeed happen in the theatre industry. I am a big theatre goer, and a great advocate and supporter of new plays and playwrights. It shocks me that what happens in this play could actually happen in real life. Has happened.
And O my days, what happens in this book. For Eddie and Hugo to keep their secret. What sacrifices. Personal and professional. Especially with the addition of third parties. And then, when they are finally ready to tell all, well, I'll leave you to find out how that goes down...
I am not sure still exactly what I feel about the main characters. They all have their good and bad qualities. They do come across as human and flawed. But also gritty and determined, and willing to fight for what they want and believe in, if on occasion heart rules head a bit! But I don't think my ambivalence marred my overall enjoyment of this book. I say book, I should say DEBUT book. Which makes it all the more impressive. And leaves me all the more excited to find out what she has in store for next time. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.