So this was the first book I received in my Once Upon A Book Club subscription (I’ll be posting about that soon!), and I have to say, what a way to start a membership that I can kind of afford but not really.

Let’s start with the GoodReads Overview:

The name of the elite, women-only coworking space stretches across the wall behind the check-in desk: THE HERD, the H-E-R always in purple. In-the-know New Yorkers crawl over each other to apply for membership to this community that prides itself on mentorship and empowerment. Among the hopefuls is Katie Bradley, who’s just returned from the Midwest after a stint of book research blew up in her face. Luckily, Katie has an in, thanks to her sister Hana, an original Herder and the best friend of Eleanor Walsh, its charismatic founder.

As head of PR, Hana is working around the clock in preparation for a huge announcement from Eleanor—one that would change the trajectory of The Herd forever.

Then, on the night of the glitzy Herd news conference, Eleanor vanishes without a trace. Everybody has a theory about what made Eleanor run, but when the police suggest foul play, everyone is a suspect.

After initially reading the overview, I was already hooked; women’s empowerment, mystery, and a New York setting were all I needed to get excited about Bartz’s novel but nothing prepared me for how much I actually loved this book.

The Herd is written from the dual perspectives of Hana and Katie, sisters who are both connected to Eleanor, the founder of the Herd. Bartz does an amazing job of highlighting the struggles of both the work intensive Hana and the down on her luck Katie in a way that makes the reader connect to and find parallels to both.

Speaking of characters, my god were they relatable. Each of them were flawed in their own way which made them more real in the long run. I personally found myself relating heavily to Hana in wondering if she was a token POC in her relationship with Eleanor and in her professional life as well. One of the topics that Bartz touched on not only through Hana’s struggle with tokenism, but through the experiences of the other female characters as well, was the idea of imposter syndrome and how it disproportionately affects women. We often find ourselves wondering and questioning our own accomplishments for fear that we’ll be caught or labeled a fraud. I definitely struggle with this in both my professional and academic life and if you do too, I highly recommend reading this book!

Something else that I really appreciated in this book was that romantic relationships didn’t the main stage. Instead The Herd primarily focused on female friendships and sisterhoods, which validated the book’s overall message. Let me explain what I mean. In the past few fiction books that I’ve read, there’s always this overarching romantic relationship lurking in the background that things always tie back to, and as a single lady (who can sometimes be a little bitter) it was really refreshing to see the romance take a back seat. Now don’t get me wrong, there were some relationships both preexisting and budding in the novel, but they weren’t necessarily pivotal to the story line. Bartz really made the female friendships shine and addressed a lot of the issues that come up in female friendships which is all I can say without giving too much away.

One of my only criticisms of this book were that some of the backstories of the characters seemed a bit ill placed. For example, we don’t find out a lot about the two sisters, Hana and Katie’s backgrounds until very late in the book which is a little annoying because their past is referenced to all throughout the novel. Bartz may have chose to do this to kind of build up the reader’s suspense but I found it kind of annoying.

My final note and then I’ll take my seat. I absolutely loved how the book addressed the necessity of girls supporting girls! It’s so important, especially in today’s world where feminism and intersectionality are hot topics to remind ourselves of the main goal which is making sure that ALL women are being supported and treated equally, and The Herd makes this point blatantly clear.

All in all, I give this book a solid 4.5/5! If it sounds like something you’d be interested in, click here!