ARC Review: Valley Verified by Kyla Zhao

On paper, Zoe Zeng has made it in New York’s fashion world. After a string of unpaid internships, she’s now a fashion columnist at Chic, lives in a quaint apartment in Manhattan, and gets invited to exclusive industry events.

But life in New York City isn’t as chic as Zoe imagined. Her editor wants her to censor her opinions to please the big brands; she shares her “quaint” ( small) apartment with two roommates who never let her store kimchi in the fridge; and how is she supposed to afford the designer clothes expected for those parties on her meager salary?

Then one day, Zoe receives a job offer at FitPick, an app startup based in Silicon Valley. The tech salary and office perks are sweet, but moving across the country and switching to a totally new industry? Not so much. However, with her current career at a dead end, Zoe accepts the offer and swaps high fashion for high tech, haute couture for HTML. But she soon realizes that in an industry claiming to change the world for the better, not everyone’s intentions are pure. With an eight-figure investment on the line, Zoe must find a way to revamp FitPick’s image despite Silicon Valley’s elitism and her icy colleagues. Or the company’s future will go up in smoke—and hers with it.

• Title: Valley Verified
• Author:  Kyla Zhao
• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication Date: January 16, 2024
• Genre: Contemporary, Romance
• Source: A finished, physical copy was gifted by the publisher
• Targeted Age Range: Adult
• Content Warnings: Sexual assault, racism 
• Rating: ★★★.5

Valley Verified opens with Zoe Zeng, a fashion columnist for slowly dying magazine Chic, at an industry exclusive fashion event. Despite working for Chic, her life is anything but glamorous. She’s living in a tiny Manhattan apartment with a few roommates, her columns and articles are constantly torn to shreds by her editor, and her work life balance is terrible. So when she’s offered a job working for FitPick, an app startup based in California, as their new Vice President of Marketing, she decides to go for it; swapping her best friends, New York City, and her Pradas for a six-figure salary in a completely different field, Silicon Valley, and Patagonias. With the world of tech being a brand new realm for Zoe, she’s got to charm not just her new coworkers, but also an important investor — either that, or FitPick’s future, and hers, will be screwed. 

I’m not sure if this is a recent trend in publishing, or if it’s particularly evident in Kyla Zhao’s books, but if I got a dollar for every time a brand was mentioned and name-dropped, I could afford at least one of the luxury brand items in Valley Verified. Personally, I found this to be distracting in The Fraud Squad, and just as much so, in Valley Verified. I understand Zhao’s intentions of hammering in how much Zoe loves fashion, it felt a little too much at times, and was also just distracting. Especially as someone who loves to look things up; I felt like I was constantly putting the book down to google what the mentioned items or brands looked like.  Still, it is evident how much Zhao loves fashion. For some additional context, Zhao has written for Harper’s Bazaar Singapore, Vogue Singapore, Tatler Singapore, and currently works in Silicon Valley — which means that she’s uniquely positioned to write about the intersection of the high fashion world, and technology as someone who is inherently familiar with both. 

In all honesty, Valley Verified feels like a TikTok fancam of Legally Blonde, set to Taylor Swift’s The Man. It’s fun, but I wish there was more substance to it. We have the fashion-obsessed main character, who uproots her life and is in a very male-dominated space for a change; we’ve got the mentor-y coworker that our main character ends up falling in love with, the standoffish female that’s initially perceived as bitchy, but becomes a close friend and confidant, and the friend that gives her a makeover of sorts and is one of her strongest supports. 

I think this book would have benefited from just being longer — I know that I often say this, but I really do think this book could have expanded on several plot points, and I would’ve wanted more character development for Zoe, and some of the other side characters. A good chunk of the book felt like a movie’s montage moments, rather than actual events that were happening. I left feeling like I didn’t really know Zoe that well, and that I just didn’t feel very invested in the story. There was a lot of potential for Valley Verified, and I liked where it was headed; I just felt like there wasn’t enough time to execute it. 
Despite being easily predictable, I did find Valley Verified to be a quick, fun read. It’s evident how much Zhao loves both worlds, and I think others will find it equally enjoyable!

Links for Valley Verified: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org