This book is hilarious. I was literally laughing out loud while reading it. ( )

In fairness, this book is more of a 2 1/2 star, but given the tyrannical nature of the star system I am forced to go with a 2. Typically, this is the type of book I like--sarcastic, cynical, and funny. I really enjoyed the first half of it, but then got bogged down by the halfway point. I've worked in an office scenario like this before and easily recognized the stereotypes depicted by Ferris (part of the fun in the beginning was recognizing and assigning real life names to the characters, "Oh my God, that is totally Bubba!"--obviously names have been changed here to make sure I don't get my butt kicked by a former colleague). Part of the problem is that Ferris is so good at describing the minutiae of day-to-day life in an office--the petty bickering, the fight for the best office supplies, the gossiping that takes precedence over work--that I eventually began to feel like I was going to work every time I picked up the book.

This is not a bad book and it certainly has its merits. Ferris uses a peculiar point of view throughout the book that I have heard others complain about, but I found it was actually one of the strong points. The book is told from the "we" perspective, as though such is the mediocrity of their carbon copy lives that the mindless office drones can no longer think for themselves and instead think as a collective. As the book goes on, we begin to see individual characters emerge--usually as they are laid off from their jobs and, thus, their individuality is returned to them. In some cases, the individual character is someone who has become the poster child for a particular office stereotype and is granted an individual name based upon the collective's view of this person as "different" in some way: the person who is always last to know, the person who is always the first to know, the storyteller, the noncomformist, the perfectionist, the couple engaged in the interoffice affair. Also compelling is the stand alone chapter we get from the perspective of Lynn, the boss who is diagnosed with breast cancer and who struggles with keeping her private life and fears separate from the office.

As a whole, this was a clever conceit that would have done well as a novella, but it was wearing pretty thin by the 385 page mark. Watch Office Space--it does it better. ( )

A quirky book, this one had its moments of greatness & moments of just so-so writing. The narrator remains nameless, and yet a part of the action throughout. I was fine with that part. But the flow of the book left me a little miffed & it felt disjointed to me. It was a mix of comedy & seriousness, but I didn't particularly think they melded together quite right. The comedic parts were very "Seinfeld-esque", which I loved. I especially loved an early episode about a bookcase & a desk chair, & I wish there had been more of that. So I'm not quite sure how I felt about this one overall. I think I would've enjoyed it more had Joshua Ferris chosen a style of writing & stuck with it. ( )

A good book for those times when the day to day pointlessness of the work week is getting you down. This book is much, much funnier if you’ve actually spent time working in an office, in which case there are moments that will seem like Ferris must have actually had your job. The first-person plural is an interesting choice, and one he pulls off well, for the most part, although the small third person interlude in the middle was a welcome change. A bit drawn out at times, but overall a captivating read. ( )

Sigh. This is a book that probably started out as a bang-up short story. And in small doses, it's a pretty good voice-driven piece. Early on, the narrative perspective (told in the voice of "we thought this, we felt that, this annoyed us, we responded this way") wore thin. Very thin.

We stood around and shot the shit a lot, and we gossiped a lot, and we wasted time a lot, and surprisingly, we didn't like that people were getting canned a lot. But we didn't bother working a lot when the chance came to earn the right to be there--or when the chance came to save our skin. And when we moved on to other companies, we looked backed fondly and thought about our salad days. Ahhhh.

But what about the incongruous middle section? Where we become they and the narrative voice is now she--our boss? Yes, it's cleverly explained at the end, but if we stop reading the book, because it's annoying, and plodding, and we want to bash one another upon the head for standing around and gossiping instead of moving the PLOT along, for cripe's sake, well then, we never come to the end, and find out how clever the author is, do we?

Oh geeze. I know it's won all sorts of awards. And it's probably literature with capital L. But I couldn't wait to finish it, and that's not the sign of a great read for me. If I owned it, I'd give it to you in a heartbeat.

This one's a good library pick. Trust me. ( )