Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

How it reads

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead is narrative nonfiction (business leadership, specifically), and its dominant mood is hopeful. Whatever it puts its people through, it believes things can get better. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.

It's set in a big city setting, in the present day, told in the first person by a single narrator. Its central concerns are identity and power and politics. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 217 pages it's a quick read. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.