has ALL you need!

A community for book lovers to create their own bookshelves, share and explore books.

• 5 people find this helpful

  • 

  • Can someone please tell me why this book received such excellent reviews? The prose is lazy and frequently repetitive. Very little insight here that you can't find in works with similar themes--like George Saunders' short stories. Occasional interesting moments of comedy/irony, but not enough to rec ... Continue

    Can someone please tell me why this book received such excellent reviews? The prose is lazy and frequently repetitive. Very little insight here that you can't find in works with similar themes--like George Saunders' short stories. Occasional interesting moments of comedy/irony, but not enough to recommend the book. Must admit that after about the first hundred pages I found the book so tedious I almost put it down forever.

    

    Is this helpful?

• ― Albion said on Jan 16, 2009 | Add your feedback

• 3 people find this helpful

  • After hearing how funny this book was I tried to read it several times. Recently picked it back up (after putting it down months ago) but quickly just gave up again - permanently this time. The long rambling pointless prose style just got to me. It's like listening to that long-winded person everyon ... Continue

    After hearing how funny this book was I tried to read it several times. Recently picked it back up (after putting it down months ago) but quickly just gave up again - permanently this time. The long rambling pointless prose style just got to me. It's like listening to that long-winded person everyone has in their office tell what should be a brief story about what they did last night - they drone on and on and won't just get to the point, and when they finally do you forgot why you even cared. Yes, there are some very pointed and funny observations in the book, but they are buried within long passages that go nowhere and serve no purpose.

    

    Is this helpful?

• ― Cuzzin Todd said on Aug 31, 2008 | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  • 

  • Loved this book. Interesting narration: first person plural! It really works. The book is spot-on for the collective conscious of people in the workplace. Why aren't there more books about the workplace? It's where we spend so much of our time. I've recommended this to many people without reservatio ... Continue

    Loved this book. Interesting narration: first person plural! It really works. The book is spot-on for the collective conscious of people in the workplace. Why aren't there more books about the workplace? It's where we spend so much of our time. I've recommended this to many people without reservations.

    

    Is this helpful?

• ― Neighbors said on Jan 26, 2008 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts.  Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Joshua Ferris brilliantly depicts in his debut novel is family at its strangest and best, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks.
     With a demon's eye for the details that make life worth noticing, Joshua Ferris tells a true and funny story about survival in life's strangest environment--the one we pretend is normal five days a week.

Groups with this in collection

NY Times Notable Book Club (328)

50 Book Challenge! (446)

• literary fictionfictionhumorNational Book Award NomineeARC