The Sweetest Getaway
Fighting corporate exploitation in a novel way, four capable women plan a heist in the thrilling book The Sweetest Getaway.
In Sasha Preston’s entertaining novel The Sweetest Getaway, women plan a heist to hit back at a corporation’s bad practices.
In Omaha, Jennifer and Nari are roommates who met online. Jennifer works as a marketer, and Nari is known for her successful money-making schemes. When Johannes recruits Nari to steal artificial sweetener from Essentrix, Jennifer’s employer, and resell it for a huge payout, Jennifer is reluctant. However, after Nari tells her that Essentrix exploits women at its African mines, she’s in. The first heist is successful, so they plan a larger, more complex theft—cutting Johannes out in the process.
The women’s characterizations are built on the contrasts between them. Jennifer is an earnest daydreamer who has trouble lying; Nari is willing to bend rules and break laws to complete high-dollar business deals. Jennifer is most interested in helping the women in the Congo, while Nari wants to make her mother, Hana, proud. Hana, who has vast experience leading complex heists, is invited to join the team. The women also recruit Martha, a superb hacker, and insiders at Essentrix, police officers, and drivers are involved as well.
Moving between the women’s social activities and their heist plans, the story is active throughout. Jennifer and Nari disguise themselves as elites at a gala and have to outrun security early on. Later, the women build muscle at the gym so they can haul the heavy boxes of stolen sweetener; they wear wigs and change their getaway cars on repeat. And even as the team bonds through spa visits, cocktails, and karaoke, they remain aware that their plot could go wrong.
The chapters are labeled according to their focal characters, with most devoted to Jennifer and Nari. Details about their individual stories, and about their different impacts on others, help to move the story along. Indeed, the four women behind the “mission,” as Hana calls it, deal with mother-daughter baggage and heist inexperience too. Complications multiply as they add a decoy team, additional targets, and romance; at various points, team members drop out then rejoin, supplies are delayed or go missing, and personal desires threaten the plan. The novel mixes fun and danger seamlessly, and social commentary factors into Jennifer’s arguments that the plan is about addressing injustice. Later, as the mission takes shape, chapter headings include a countdown to the heist to increase the tension.
The prose is conversational and lively, revealing much through choice details. At a party for the rich, for example, people talk about wealth “like they were talking about visits to the local Shop N Save.” And because Jennifer, Nari, and the rest are affectionate, smart, and kind, every threat to their success results in an adrenaline rush. From the first team meeting to heist day and beyond, the only certainty in their lives and plans is change. Throughout, their girlfriend time offers a fun landing spot between difficulties.
Roommates deepen their friendship while blurring the lines between right and wrong in the electric heist novel The Sweetest Getaway.
Reviewed by
Lynne Jensen Lampe
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