Review: Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win by Jo Piazza

Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win

by Jo Piazza

Publisher: Simon Schuster

Pages: 320

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Charlotte Walsh is running for Senate in the most important race in the country during a midterm election that will decide the balance of power in Congress. Still reeling from a presidential election that shocked and divided the country and inspired by the chance to make a difference, she’s left behind her high-powered job in Silicon Valley and returned, with her husband Max and their three young daughters, to her downtrodden Pennsylvania hometown to run in the Rust Belt state.

Once the campaign gets underway, Charlotte is blindsided by just how dirty her opponent is willing to fight, how harshly she is judged by the press and her peers, and how exhausting it becomes to navigate a marriage with an increasingly ambivalent and often resentful husband. When the opposition uncovers a secret that could threaten not just her campaign but everything Charlotte holds dear, she has to decide just how badly she wants to win and at what cost.


Kritters Thoughts:  There are quite a few books that take a reader behind the scenes of Hollywood, but I think there are less that take a reader behind the scenes of politics.  I know there are some out there, but I think there are less.  This book really felt like a real peek behind the curtain and I loved it.

Charlotte Walsh is heading not only back to her home state but small hometown and is going to run for state Senate in Pennsylvania.  In this book and in real life there had been no females elected into the Senate for Pennsylvania and I did an extensive google search homing to prove the book wrong and sadly it was true until this last election.  So back to the book, Charlotte is running and she is heading back to her small hometown to center her campaign there.  She left a small town in Pennsylvania and not in the best circumstances and has become a COO of a Silicon Valley corporation and published a book, she made me think of Cheryl Sandberg.  I loved following her through the ups and downs of returning home and then the crazy battle of politics.

My favorite moment is when there was a shoe fiasco and she point blank calls out the media on the gender bias and asks them to ask her male counterpoint to ask him what shoes he is wearing and if he is wearing heels!  It was most interesting that there was media both female and male involved in shoe gate and it really made me think about how we evaluate candidates. 

I won't spoil a thing, but OH THE ENDING!  If there is no sequel after this, I at least want a novella or something to wrap up some of the loose ends!

I really hope Jo Piazza writes more like this.  I loved how she really examined a "woman's place" and would love to see more from her.  


Rating: absolutely loved it and want a sequel

Ebook 2018 Challenge: 63 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Simon Schuster.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.