Then We Came to the End

A good start to this novel which details the everyday lives of a group of office workers in America. The situation is pretty much the same as happens in the UK - lots of chat and little work, rumours magnified and gossip spread, one upmanship and practical jokes - so I was easily able to identify with the book. However, once we come to know these people, not much else really developed to keep my attention and I found myself not caring about their fates. There are two big set pieces which I won't give away, but these events seemed two-dimensional and unreal. I think this book could have been an excellent novella, but in stretching its idea to a full novel, the potential 'magic' is too diluted to maintain interest.

I'm hedging between two and three stars. I think this would have been a fantastic short story. He really captures the everyday pettiness of office work. But it's one of those books that has zero likeable characters and not much to actually say about life. I guess some ppl found it funny, but I didn't laugh at all. I'm not even sure I cracked a smile.

This is so much more than a literary version of The Office. It is funny and touching and all about the life and relationships we have in our office lives, but it goes way beyond that. Even better, the voice is a very unique one and in fact , I would argue, is not just one. The trick though is that transition form one to the other is seamless. This was a great read.

Hilarious.

I probably liked the middle section of the book best. Perhaps he tried a little to hard to be a literary equivalent of "The Office," but the identity of the narrator and the last line of the book were very well done, clever touches.

I picked this up because it had strong reviews by Nick Hornby and Stephen King. (Amusingly, the next book I read (They Call Me Naughty Lola) referenced how easy it is to get a book blurb from Nick Hornby.)

Perhaps I've encountered really outstanding cubicalia too many times in the recent past (JPod, Headcrash, The Office, Office Space). This book is not derivative and certainly I enjoyed the characters (as well as the gimmick of first-person plural). But maybe the genre set in Cubicle Land needs to pace itself.