Book Review: Reputation | Sarah Vaughan

With social media firmly engrained as a fixture in our society, many issues that already existed are becoming more pervasive. People’s political beliefs are broadcast to the world (or at least their social network), misogyny, misinformation, and personal attacks under the veil of online anonymity run rampant. Sarah Vaughan’s novel, Reputation explores these issues and more in a complex and thought-provoking story about a politician whose personal life becomes public fodder for online warriors looking for a pound of flesh.

The story is set in England and centers around Emma Watson who is a member of Parliament for the Labour Party. Emma was formerly a teacher and was drawn to politics to champion women’s rights and safety. Emma is perpetually in the public eye due to her work, particularly after she works on a bill to strengthen punishment from revenge porn after one of her constituents is a victim of it and takes her own life. Her work on this bill launches a new barrage of threatening letters, stalkers, and online trolls talking about escalating and attacking her personally. The press hound her everywhere she goes. One columnist perpetually degrades her in his publications (ironically the columnist is man who was formerly one of Emma’s professors at university).

Meanwhile her personal life is falling apart. Her husband leaves Emma for their daughter’s piano teacher, Caroline (a woman who was formerly a colleague and friend of Emma’s). As a single, working mother, Emma has little time for her daughter Flora who lives with her father and Emma’s ex-husband (and the woman he left her for). Emma isn’t the only one being bullied online—Flora has also been the victim of bullying and catfishing from a girl at school who she thought was her best friend. Flora retaliates by sending revenge porn of the girl to a boy at school, leading to a police investigation into the very thing Emma is rallying against.

When a journalist gets word about the story of MP Emma Watson’s own daughter engaging in revenge porn, it seems too good to pass up. Especially since that journalist and Emma had previously gone on a date and spent the night together, only for her to break it off in the morning claiming it’s inappropriate. Emma is desperate to stop the story. This could ruin Flora’s life. But then Mike comes to her house and ends up dead at the bottom of her stairs, putting Emma on trial for murder as well as in the court of public opinion.

The book structure is nonlinear and told from different perspectives. Emma’s voice is the most dominant narration, but others have chapters as well. Peppered throughout are online discourse about Emma and her case. Many of the comments are vile, but sadly representative of what we all see online every day. People can be cruel and deeply inappropriate, with nearly no recourse. Except that some people can’t make a mistake and be forgiven, it turns out. A woman’s reputation is so easy to destroy. A single photo publicized online showcasing a regrettable moment—that can become who the public says you are. Everything about a woman can be distilled into that one photo and the discourse around it.

The first half of the book is fast-moving and builds context for the inevitable fallout from the journalist’s death. The reader doesn’t find out any of the details of the death until close to the end, when the trial is going on. Until then we see snippets—Mike (the journalist) and Emma having a brief fling, his retaliation after she rejects him, Flora’s bullying at school, her decision in a moment of shame and fury to snap the photo and send it. Her immediate regret.

All of these moments make sense in context. They are understandable, perhaps even forgivable. But seeing them laid out in the courtroom as evidence for or against the murder charges alters them. It’s clear how information can be manipulated, even if it’s true. Despite everything that happens to her, for many who don’t know her, Emma is not a sympathetic figure. She’s beautiful, successful, and confident in her advocacy for women everywhere. But beneath that shiny exterior lies a different side to Emma. Her husband left her for a woman she thought was her friend, her daughter has stopped confiding in her, she’s harassed online daily and sometimes even at her home, she can’t step a toe out of the norm without it making the front page of the paper. Emma is someone who stands up for those who are victims of the patriarchy, but she isn’t given the same grace to be vulnerable.

The ending is gripping and all is revealed. Some things I guessed, others were a surprised. After dedicating her life to supporting other women, will the women in her life return the favor to support her?

A gripping and powerful story. Julia Teal’s performance in the audiobook narration was outstanding.

Thank you to Atria Books for my copy. Opinions are my own.

About the Author | Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan is the Sunday Times and international bestselling author of Anatomy of a Scandal, Little Disasters and Reputation, plus two earlier novels. Translated into 24 languages, Anatomy of a Scandal became a Richard & Judy Book of the Decade and a worldwide number one Netflix limited series, written by David E. Kelley and Melissa James Gibson, and starring Sienna Miller, Michelle Dockery and Rupert Friend. Little Disasters is in the process of being adapted for TV while Reputation, out on 7/5 in the US, has been optioned by the team behind Anatomy of a Scandal.

Before writing fiction, Sarah spent 15 years as a journalist, including 11 at the Guardian as a political correspondent and news reporter: great preparation for thrillers exploring power, privilege and misogyny, and incorporating police investigations and criminal trials. Brought up in Devon, she lives near Cambridge, England with her family and dog.

Synopsis | Goodreads

The bestselling author of Anatomy of a Scandal returns with a new psychological thriller about a politician whose less-than-perfect personal life is thrust into the spotlight when a body is discovered in her home.

As a politician, Emma has sacrificed a great deal for her career–including her marriage and her relationship with her daughter, Flora. A former teacher, she finds the glare of the spotlight unnerving, particularly when it leads to countless insults, threats, and trolling as she tries to work in the public eye. As a woman, she knows her reputation is worth its weight in gold, but as a politician, she discovers it only takes one slip-up to destroy it completely.

Fourteen-year-old Flora is learning the same hard lessons at school as she encounters heartless bullying. When another teenager takes her own life, Emma lobbies for a new law to protect women and girls from the effects of online abuse. Now, Emma and Flora find their personal lives uncomfortably intersected–but then the unthinkable happens: A man is found dead in Emma’s home, a man she had every reason to be afraid of and to want gone. Fighting to protect her reputation, and determined to protect her family at all costs, Emma is pushed to the limits as the worst happens and her life is torn apart.