I loved the premise of this book but unfortunately did not live up to my expectations. I think that I am not the target audience.
I agree with the premise that white and male gets top billing and that there is a lot of bias towards other genders and ethnicity. It should not be the case in the world today but it still is unfortunately.

Relegobile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo is an aspiring playwright who graduates top of her class and writes a brilliant play that nobody wants to know about. She tries changing her name to get her foot in the door, but when the agents see that it is a black, female, foot, she is rejected once again. Until she meets Hugo Lawrence Smith, a wealthy, privileged white boy who wants to shake off a dull legal career and embrace life in the theatre. Between them, they cook up a scheme to get Eddie's play entwined with Hugo's privilege with the idea that they will, when success comes knocking, expose the racism and hypocrisy of the theatre world forever. Unfortunately things don't go entirely as planned.

When I first started this I had a sinking feeling that this would be too much like Yellowface by R. F. Kuang, but it defied all my expectations. This is smart, funny, angry and really clever. Jay's voice is fresh and the plot twists in ways that make this unpredictable in all the best ways and altogether a really satisfying read.

This is a gripping and thought-provoking read. Drama graduate Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo (sometimes known as Eddie Morua before then settling on Naledi) meets Hugo Lawrence Smith at a cafe in October 2015. She has just written her first play and is determined to make a success of it. Unfortunately, her skin colour, her convoluted name and lack of connections means that she is turned down by the Wentworth Agency. Hugo, on the other hand, has a double-barreled quintessentially English name, white skin, a mother who is a professor in English Literature, whilst at the same time being related to an already famous writer. What if ‘The Worthy’ became ‘Great Belonging’ and was credited to Hugo?

Naledi and Hugo’s ploy initially pays dividend. The play is an award-winning triumph and sells out the Regium Theatre in its initial run. It also makes a name of the ‘playwright’ and the young director at the helm. However, Naledi’s need for success can only be vicarious - even if she is starting to build a reputation as a small-scale journalist. Can that be enough for her? Hugo also faces the pressure of what next for the young breakout playwright, at the same time as conducting a clandestine affair with its director. Neither characters are particularly likeable … but that is rather the point.

Warona Joy deals with the themes of class, gender, race, identity and the snobbery of the theatre world in pulsating fashion. Combining wit and humour with moments of great pathos as the young protagonists struggle to navigate their way through the complex web of their own making, Joy provides the reader with lots to entertain as well as ponder.

Good concept for plot and it held my interest but I did feel the characters were quite flat and I wasn't overly keen on the writing style. But overall a good read

What an important topic and a complex resolution the author is exploring here.
The main character having a play submitted to an agency rejected spends the important part of her life for the next few years devoted to righting what she considers to be a wrong.
This novel explores lots of different types of relationships, introduces the reader to various different types of people not normally met.
Not knowing what she is starting when she rolls the pebble from the top of the mountain, she is frequently sideswiped by the onrushing snowball of emotions and debris.
Considering that the novel is not overly long, it is amazing how much the author packs into this thought provoking, enthralling novel.
I really liked it, although it was a little too complex for my tastes, the writing was superb, the characters great, but not all good.
I am certainly looking forward to more novels from this author.
My thanks to the author for a brilliant story. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I really thought I'd love this but I found myself struggling to connect with it. The plot was great, there's been a lot of this kind of story over the last few years but I think this was a solid version. But there was something about the writing style that kept me at a distance. None of the characters ever felt real to me. I felt like I was observing from the outside and it wasn't super comfortable. Seems to have a lot of love, so maybe just a style I didn't gel with.

Warona Jay's debut novel, The Grand Scheme of Things, is a novel about the literary world, and how race can change the perspective of the piece. There are some very big questions bubbling under the surface which could so easily have overwhelmed the story. Jay is able to manage these themes by focusing on her central characters - Naledi, who writes a play about the immigrant experience but experiences rejection from publisher and Hugo, who resubmits the play under his name and achieves a hit. This literary duplicity is at the heart of the novel and provides some great sequences. Along the way Jay has some fun poking at the establishment and at a veiled JK Rowling in particular. This was a fun read ultimately, easy to read and engaging and I can easily see it making some best of lists at the end of the year.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

This is a story about Naledi, daughter of immigrants from Botswana, and her desperation to make it as a playwright in Britain in a post-Brexit era. It’s pretty meta in the sense that her dystopian play is about “national identity, citizenship, capitalism, that sort of thing” while the novel itself is also about those things.

Given her background, skin colour, and lack of connections, Naledi has been unable to make a breakthrough. This changes when she befriends Hugo, a rich white man from law school and ties to a famous author whose own cushy life is ripe for an upheaval. They come up with a scheme to get Naledi’s play on a stage—Hugo will resubmit her play under his name, pretending that it was actually his all along but he didn’t want to receive flak for writing about the immigrant experience from his privileged POV, and then after opening week, they would reveal the truth to everyone and expose the theatre industry for its racism and xenophobia.

Everything goes swimmingly until Hugo falls in love with the director of Naledi’s play, who is already a married woman and only at the beginning of her directorial career. To keep their affair from ruining the play’s chances, Naledi and Hugo pretend that they are dating, which opens up a whole other can of worms.

The writing was a little hard to get through sometimes but I enjoyed the barbs and the feeling that shit might hit the fan at any moment. The characters seemed a little flat, especially for Hugo, because from start to end he was such a Good White Man, an outlier of his race, fully aware of his privilege at all times and completely willing to do anything to uplift his Black friend. Making him a serial cheater seemed to be thrown in there just to make sure that we don’t like him too much and that we know he is ultimately still part of the enemy camp. It would have been more nuanced if he was revealed to be a little bit racist/ entitled, like all his friends and family.

I want to love this book so much because the plot is brilliant. The twists, turns and themes are as riveting as they are important.

But the dialogue and characters didn’t feel very real to me, and the writing felt more matter-of-fact than descriptive. A (rare) metaphor that stood out to me (because it made me wince) was describing a kiss as two stamps that were running low on ink. Eeesch. One of the main characters is also suddenly disgraced when the story jumps ahead 4 years. That change of pace felt like a clothesline to the throat.

The plot 100% carried me through though. Very mixed feelings! 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

Published 12 September 2024. Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo calls herself Eddie because it is easier than having to constantly correct people when they invariably pronounce her real name incorrectly. So when she writes a play about the immigration experience in modern Britain, she feels that her real name, her identity, will immediately lead to agents turning her down. Therefore she sends her play out under a typical white male name and immediately get a response. However, when she sets foot into the office of this highly regarded theatrical agent, any interest in the play immediately wanes. A chance meeting with Hugo Lawrence Smith in a coffee shop where prompts her to suggest a plan that could see her play performed. Hugo will pass it off as his own work! Then, when the play has achieved a reasonable level of success, the truth will be revealed about the racism in the industry. I liked the idea but what slightly thrown off balance when relationships seemed to take centre stage and I was left thinking - why? For me it blurred the boundaries - I would rather the focus had been on the plays journey rather than who Hugo was sleeping with as I felt that the point being made was an important one. As for the characters, I found Eddie and Hugo to be unlikeable, preferring Blue, Eddie's girlfriend and Nahid, the play's director. A book that has a very valid message.

This was a really powerful novel exposing racism within the sector in a compelling but also entertaining way. The writing was sharp and I really didn't want it to end

Thank you to NetGalley and Bonnier for the arc.

The story of Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo (Eddie for short and for the convenience of people who can’t, or wont, pronounce her name correctly), an aspiring playwright whose ambitions are repeatedly blocked by the bias (unconscious or otherwise) of theatre-land’s white gatekeepers, and whose response is an audacious plan to call-out that racism and shine a spotlight on it.
More nuanced and believable (and less slapstick) than RF Kuang’s Yellowface, Jay’s writing is extremely readable but you can certainly feel the (rightful) anger and frustration bubbling under the surface of this story. I did feel that the plot lost its way a little around the middle of the story (I found myself thinking “but why would they DO that?” a lot) but overall this was well written with excellent character development and a lot of important things to say.

The story follows Eddie Moruakgomo, a Black, gay playwright, who believes her work won't get produced under her real name due to bias. She teams up with Hugo Lawrence Smith, a privileged white law graduate, in order to pass her play off as his, thus exposing the industry's prejudices.
There are some similarities to Yellowface with regards to racism within the arts industry, that said,
It’s a thought-provoking and engaging story and well worth a read.

Stealing a manuscript and passing it off as your own is a common trope in literature. Consider The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz and, more recently, the highly acclaimed Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. In both of these books, a manuscript is stolen from a deceased writer. The Grand Scheme of Things by Warona Jay takes a different approach.
Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo, or Eddie for short, a gay graduate in theatre studies, has written a play about the immigrant experience in modern Britain. Believing her identity will prevent her play from being produced – there are few successful black women screenwriters – she submits her work under a typical while male name. When a highly regarded agent expresses interest in her work, she goes along to the meeting and tries to explain the reason for her deceit. The agent is unimpressed and refuses any further participation in her play.
While taking a cigarette break in a café, Eddie asks the man in the seat next to her to guard her laptop while she’s gone. Hugo Lawrence Smith, a law graduate and cousin of a children’s writer who is almost indistinguishable from JK Rowling, sneaks a peak at what she has written. He tells her how much he likes it and between them they cook up a ‘grand scheme’ to pass the play off as his. They plan to keep up the subterfuge until the play is a huge success. Then they will come clean and expose the theatre and publishing industries for the middle class, racist institutions they are.
What could go wrong? Well, quite a lot. The longer their lie goes on the more and more difficult it becomes to keep it going, or to know when they should tell all to the world. More people get involved, relationships break down and start and it seems that whatever they do, people are going to be very angry, and very hurt.
I didn’t particularly like either of the two main characters, but I was invested enough to want to read on and discover what would happen if the truth came out. I did find it a little hard to believe that someone like Eddie would put so much trust in a posh man she knew next to nothing about. As the book progresses it becomes clear that one of them is a lot more sympathetic than the other and I felt a little disappointed in the stereotyping at the end.
This is a highly competent book and there is a lot to say about the topic Jay writes about. As an old, white woman, I’m not qualified to make a judgement on the lived experience of someone like Eddie. I don’t doubt for a moment how difficult it must be for BAM creatives and if books like this bring our attention to it in an entertaining way, I’m all for that.
Definitely worth a read.
Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

I really wanted to love this one, but I found myself really struggling to connect with either main characters! The plot was also a little slow for my liking, especially with the jumping around and different time periods. All in all, I don’t think this was for me. I enjoyed the writing but unfortunately that was about it.

Ambitious playwright Eddie needs a foot in the door, so she recruits lovable posh boy Hugo to be the apparent creator of her play, inspired by a visit to Africa to see her father. No problems there, then.

The characters are refreshingly imperfect, from Eddie who will sell her beloved girlfriend down the river for a chance at success even under another person's identity, to smarmy theatrical agent Helen (we've all met a few of her) whose 'diversity initiatives' mask a successful devotion to gatekeeping. The character I liked most was actor/director Nahid who gets drawn into the grand scheme against her will. (Helen's choice of this 'woman of colour' to direct the play despite Nahid being Iranian rather than Black and having no directing experience is fairly on brand).

Like many of these books - Yellowface, The Other Black Girl, Promising Young Women et al - the third act starts to wobble after a banging beginning. I started wanting more twists - what if Hugo had been more involved in the play? What if the scam were the other way round? What if Eddie and Hugo fell in love, or Eddie got off with one of Hugo's posh female friends? The latter two plots are teased, but don't happen (and yes, Eddie is gay, but her feelings about him are complex to say the least). I found myself identifying most with the characters who basically spend the third quarter of the book telling the two leads that what they have done is silly and damaging.

That said, I found this a thoroughly enjoyable ride. I just wish someone would write one of these books and know how to get out of the problems they set up - but perhaps that's because the issues facing our cultural industries cannot be easily solved, even in fiction.

A book which twisted and turned, changing my perceptions one way and then another. I found myself questioning my own privilege. I also vacillated between admiring and loathing the plot. It was somehow all too easy.
Eddie, an aspiring playwright, forges an unlikely friendship with posh Hugo, and they conspire to punish the publishing world for rejecting Eddie's play when she submitted it under own name (Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo).
Eddie was a hugely divisive character. I became impatient with how chippy she was, and then angry with myself for thinking that.
The plot may be a bit thin but the book is absolutely spot on in challenging our perceptions and exposing the reality of life for a black creative woman in supposedly liberal and understanding Britain.

A satire and iconic look at the world of publishing.

is it unfair,unequal, wrong and just plain strange?

A bit Yellowface in places

Interesting

The Grand Scheme of Things is a novel about a Black playwright whose battle against the racism of the industry leads her to concoct a plot with her White friend. Eddie suspects that her full name—Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo—is causing agents to ignore her script, a biting dystopian play about immigration. Hugo Lawrence Smith is a posh, white man who is meant to become a lawyer, but he likes the theatre, and when they meet in a coffee shop, it seems an opportunity has arisen: send the script in as if Huge wrote it. But their plan keeps meeting complications, and soon their relationships, successes, and dreams are all part of this secret.

The book is told alternatively from Eddie and Hugo's perspectives and the writing style immediately drew me in, exploring first Eddie's struggles to find success after her degree and then how her friendship with Hugo became a chance for her. The narrative arc is simple yet effective, particularly around how difficult it is to reveal a lie even when it was meant to be proving the racism and elitism of the industry, and it gives the characters space to be as complex as the world they're trying to make their way in. There's a lot of little satirical details—like Hugo being related to a thinly-veiled version of a certain author—that make the book tick, but at the heart of it are questions around what someone without privilege, someone who is not White, can, should and might want to do in order to be heard and to get somewhere.

The Grand Scheme of Things is likely to be compared to Yellowface as their superficial similarities around racism in getting written work published/performed might stand out, but The Grand Scheme of Things takes a very different approach and is also very specifically set in London, bringing the race, class and privilege concepts from that context. I really liked the writing style and the way it balanced a biting narrative with some deeper character exploration.

I have recently read Yellowface and was slightly apprehensive that this novel would be too similar but in fact I thought it was better. It explores issues of race and class in publishing, but not in a didactic way and this element of the plot exists amongst other themes of friendship, relationships and loyalty. It is funny and moving in parts too.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a review copy.