Pitch for Going Green: Romance, but make it unnecessary

Going Green by Nick Spalding was a heck of a lot of fun. Ellie Cooke is a PR Consultant for a firm that is going under. Morale is low. Her car ka-thunks its way down the road, emitting tons of greenhouse gases. She’ll get around to fixing or replacing it because, ya know, the environment. However, she has more important things to do, like redo her CV (This book is VERY British).

via Goodreads

The firm is within weeks of closing when Nolan Reece steps in at the eleventh hour to save the day. He announces that the firm will be moving in a new direction, working exclusively with ecofriendly businesses. Oh, and he has to let some people go to save some money and he will let them know sometime soon. This spurs Ellie into action in order to save her job. She buys plants for around the office, trying to impress Nolan with her (extremely forced) go-getter attitude and her love of the environment, even going as far as buying hemp underwear even though she is apparently allergic.

Surprisingly, this somehow saves her job and even gets her promoted. Of course, this is the start of the romance subplot. Honestly, it was totally unnecessary. This book could have excised that entire subplot and would still be just as charming and funny. That’s not a bad thing by any means, if anything, it shows how good of a writer Spalding is.

As for the environmental message, this book is incredibly preachy and that is a good thing. The way it handles how people talk about climate change is nuanced and well done. In the middle of the book, Ellie visits a Year Six (please explain I’m not British) classroom to get some focus group data or something (please explain I’m not a businessperson). She prepares relatively easy questions for them as they are young and, she thinks, stupid. Kids these days are definitely not stupid. They are terrified of the planet that Boomers destroyed, Gen X made worse, and Millennials can’t do anything about. They pepper her with questions about doomsday scenarios that are totally plausible. It’s the wake up call Ellie needs to change her non-ecofriendly ways which ultimately leads to disaster.

My biggest issue with this book were the chapter titles. This is just a personal quibble, but I ABHOR cutesy chapter titles. And, ho boy, this book has them, so many of them. This doesn’t take anything away from my rating or anything, but I just needed to warn you before you dive in.

Going Green is fun, quick witted, and just a delight. It’s a great primer for how to start being a better global citizen, as well. Overall, it’s a 4/5, 7/10. Make sure you pick this one up, as it is available now!

Thanks again to NetGalley for letting me read this eARC!