Book Review: Someone Had to Do It by Amber and Danielle Brown

Was Gossip Girl your never-miss show? What about The Devil Wears Prada? If so, you’ll inhale Someone Had to Do It—a mystery embedded in the surprisingly cut-throat world of high fashion. 

Brandi Maxwell is a summer intern at the prestigious New York fashion house Simon Van Doren. Doesn’t that define living the dream? Unfortunately reality intrudes on a daily basis. Brandi doesn’t have family money backing up her enviable once-in-a-lifetime job, yet her job necessitates looking fabulous 24/7. Also, she’s Black and she wonders if some of the micro-aggressions that come her way are related to that.  She has the fashion credentials: She studied at NYC’s Fashion Institute of Technology.  

Brandi thinks ruefully that she’s “putting in more hours than the sun,” showing up before dawn and leaving when the sky is black. Her aim is to be such an exemplary employee that she’ll be offered a full-time job when her summer internship ends, but it’s not easy:

I religiously show up in current-season heels despite the blisters, albeit mass-produced renditions of the Fendi, Balenciaga and Bottega Venetas the other summer interns casually strut around in, and mostly stick to myself. I am careful about raising my voice, even if I vehemently disagree with my neurotic supervisor. I keep my tongue as puritanical as a nun’s, even when fucking incel or coddled narcissistic bitch are on the tip of it. I’m not rude or combative. I stay away from gossip. I complete all my tasks with time to spare, which is usually when I check Twitter and help out some of the other interns, even though I’d rather FaceTime Nate in the upstairs bathroom with the magical lighting.

Nate is a gorgeous, talented professional athlete. Money is not a problem for him. Brandi is broke, ambitious, and envious. In an Instagram and TikTok world, it’s all too easy to see how the other half lives and Brandi is obsessed with Simon Van Doren’s daughter Taylor. Taylor is a brilliant young influencer, the living embodiment of an entitled “nepo”  daughter. Coincidentally, Nate, like Taylor, inherited a parent’s aura. His famous father, Reggie Robinson, is a four time NFL MVP. Nate and Taylor were friends at prep school—okay, more than friends. For Taylor, Nate is the one who got away, but he’s crazy about his girlfriend. Nate believes in Taylor’s talents and he’s prepared to use his influence to help her. It all comes together at an over-the-top party for charity at the Van Doren mansion. Nate has an invite—he tells Brandi she’ll be his plus-one and he’ll make sure she gets to talk to Simon. Nate knows how much Brandi wants a job with Simon Van Doren after her summer internship ends. 

What the world doesn’t know is that Taylor’s larger-than-life image is not reality. Because of her checkered drug history, the heiress is this close to losing her inheritance. Her father mandates monthly drug tests, and although Taylor has a friend give her clean urine, the scheme isn’t foolproof. Her father is threatening to cut her off if she doesn’t clean up her act—next month’s drug test has to be clean or a charity will be the beneficiary of her trust fund. Adding insult to injury, Simon Van Doren is about to marry a girl her own age. Taylor tells her best friend Mei that Simon has even conquered cancer:

“Can’t believe he beat cancer. Who does that?”

 

“My mom was a literal angel who rescued pigeons and opossums. She gets stage two cancer and is gone within a year. Dad recklessly fucks some random bitch while she’s doing chemo, gets stage four cancer and then poof, it’s gone. I don’t get it.”

 

Mei lifts a shoulder in an irreverent shrug. “So slit his throat.”

 

I stare at her. Her mouth is set in a firm line, but there’s laughter in her eyes.

 

I imagine it anyway, what she says. My father gone, no more reminders of the man who took my best friend from me, my angel.

The party is beyond Brandi’s wildest imagination. She meets Taylor and has a one-on-one conversation with Simon that seems very promising—life doesn’t get better than this. Brandi can’t resist wandering through the opulent Van Doren mansion. It’s jaw-dropping; the whole place seems “ripped straight from the pages of Architectural Digest.” Brandi stumbles upon Taylor’s room, a suite so big it could swallow up her apartment:

There’s a hot pink neon sign plugged into the wall next to the mirror that reads Need Money for Birkin.

 

For a moment her whiteness is insufferable.

Brandi knows it’s supposed to be ironic but it still feels like a slap in the face. When she was a kid, she occasionally panhandled to get money for food so she wouldn’t pass out in class. There is such a chasm between their lived experience. Brandi is ready to track down Nate when she overhears voices—one of them is Taylor’s:

A new voice chimes in, gentler than the others. A guy. So there’s three of them. I shouldn’t listen.

 

I listen.

 

“You seriously want to kill your dad?” the guy asks, his voice deadpan.

 

I lean closer, my hand pressing flat against the door.

After Brandi hears that very disturbing conversation, all hell breaks loose for her. Someone does murder Simon Van Doren, and Brandi’s a suspect. Readers will gulp down Someone Had to Do It like a parched marathoner drinking Gatorade. The pace is breakneck and the twists and turns come out of left field. The accuracy of the story is undeniable. Sisters Amber and Danielle Brown worked for five years in the NYC fashion industry and their inside knowledge informs every word. What a fabulous debut thriller! When is the movie coming out?