I Hope This Finds You Well

Jolene works a soul-sucking office job for a large supermarket chain. She tries to keep her head down and ignore her office-mates and their squabbles and intrigues, occasionally adding a sarcastic postscript to her emails in a white-on-white font to vent her feelings. When she forgets to white out one such note, she is remanded to HR for an obligatory training course, and her computer is set up with monitoring software. However, when she logs back in, she discovers that she can see everyone's email and messages on the company server, including ones about admin's plans for restructuring and layoffs. Her job may be on the chopping block, especially since her recent disciplinary action -- but if she completes the HR course, that will be show more wiped from her record. And with the email access, she now has a major advantage. There's just one problem: Cliff, the new HR dude, is actually really kind, and they're becoming friends. What will happen when he learns the truth?

The blurb says this is perfect for fans of The Office, and from what I've seen of that show, it's right on track. These are realistically flawed characters (except for Cliff, who may be a just a little too perfect) who mostly hate their jobs and enjoy engaging in a sarcastic zinger or some low-impact shenanigans every once in a while. Jolene is socially awkward and traumatized by the death of a high-school friend, and she does grow in empathy over the course of the novel as she gets to know her co-workers a little better. I found it an engrossing read, and would also recommend it to fans of Rainbow Rowell's Attachments. show less

This is a novel about an Iranian-American woman in a dead-end secretarial job at a paper company. She's poorly socialized, awkward, a little bit of a bully, actively hostile and often outright cruel to most people, including a young neighbour who has the gall to occasionally say hello to her. She gets into the habit of including nasty little messages in hidden text in her work emails to colleagues - they don't see the messages and she apparently finds it cathartic to abuse them for things like decorating their own cubicles for the holidays, enjoying their coffee, and other such horrific offenses. Obviously, one day she forgets to hide the text, and gets put on a performance improvement program and given HR training for harassing her show more colleagues. The poorly-drawn hero - the blank canvas on which we are meant to project our passions - is the HR employee assigned to train her. His defining trait is that he is nice and quirky - you can tell by the way he enthuses about his nerd hobbies, which our heroine takes great pleasure in alternately mocking and ignoring. This is apparently an irresistibly charming technique to impress your future figurative love interest. Through the novel we are told that her awful behaviour is because of unresolved childhood trauma concerning the death of a friend. Despite being given every opportunity to have this trauma addressed - a supportive if somewhat confused family that she is quite mean to; the offer of therapy that she rejects, and so on, she persists in being consistently horrible to everyone including herself. Her inner monologue, through which much of this story is narrated - has been described by so many reviewers as funny. I found it incredibly spiteful and mean-spirited - something that she acknowledges to the end and does the absolute bare minimum to address. She takes some steps to be nicer - mostly for instrumental reasons, to get a promotion - and ends up abusing some email access that she's been mistakenly given to manipulate her coworkers. This backfires, but there is still a happy ending. A little epilogue suggests that some steps were taken to address her issues, post-happy ending. I think it would have been a stronger book overall if we had seen any evidence at all of actual emotional growth in the book and were not asked to assume in the epilogue that it had occurred (despite an entire book of evidence to the contrary).

There is a trend in romance novels of actively awful people having their actively awful behaviour rewarded with little to no actual accountability, coupled with many excuses and justifications for why that actively awful behaviour is okay. Emily Henry does this too. It reminds me of how the concept of 'self-care' was envisioned by Audre Lorde. As she was battling cancer and also racism and sexism, she wrote "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” This idea has somehow become the concept that your emotional journey will be completed by a $100 scented candle, a warm bath, and a moisturiser made of orphans' tears - a complete transition from self-care, to self-indulgence. A parallel to this is the trend in romance fiction that extremely flawed characters are too, entitled to happy endings. I do like that we aren't reading about perfect dolls with perfect marriages: we're all flawed and that's what makes the story interesting. At the same time, I do feel that within the genre, the emotional arc, and with it, some emotional journeys, are part of what we seek. If a person is horrid to start with, and then continues to be horrid while falling in love, and is then justified in their horrid-ness (horriditude? horridity?) because of that love, it's difficult to understand why we're reading the book at all. Yes, horrid people are rewarded all the time - but if I wanted to read that story, I'd pick up a newspaper, not a romance novel. It would honestly be more entertaining to see such flawed characters take a full villain arc than have us believe they are the misunderstood victims of a mean conspiracy. Lean into the villainy, you cowards! Seriously, though - romance fiction is built on the idea that you invest yourself in the happiness of the characters you read, and I don't care at all about these nasty little people, their nasty little lives, and their cardboard boyfriends. show less

What's it like when you slip behind the veil of office communications? In her debut novel, Natalie Sue takes us there. This smart, funny and often sad tale demonstrates the toxic nature of some office relationships, along with giving us a peek into the outside lives of many of the officemates. The characters are quirky and not always believable, but each has their own relatable qualities. Should we know what’s below the surface? Could we be kinder? more helpful, offer friendship? Amid her witticisms, Sue explores the coping mechanisms coworkers use to manage the realities of loneliness, trauma, grief and fear.

Our fmc Jolene struggles with anxiety and is disconnected from her co-workers at her dead-end job. She meets Cliff from HR after she is discovered secretly adding phantom white-fonted postscripts on her inter-office emails in a cathartic effort to privately air grievances with her co-workers. After 8 years in a soulless job, she barely interacts with any of her colleagues. She seems to suffer from social anxiety and anxiety in general, and there are hints of a mysterious tragic past, which made me wonder if continuing to work at her horrible job with what she considers sub-par humans is a form of self-flagellation. (Although I think many of us can relate to just tolerating your co-workers and working a thankless job that is most show more definitely *not* a fulfilling career.) Some technical hi-jinks ensue, leading Jolene to have full access to her co-worker's emails and inter-office communications. What will Jolene do with all of this forbidden information? What lines would you be tempted to cross in that situation, and would you actually do it? It turns into quite a ride for both Jolene and for Cliff.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't enjoy a book like this due to the excessive collateral anxiety I'd experience on behalf of the characters. And make no mistake, there are a lot of cringe-inducing events in this book. But they're written so earnestly and, at times, with such great comedic absurdity that they're a delight to read. I love the progression of the supporting characters as Jolene learns more about her co-workers, as she (and we as readers) see them evolve from one-dimensional quasi-adversaries to actual human beings with lives and personalities and problems. I also really love the author's comedic timing (Jolene's inner snark is fantastic), her ability to almost trick us into liking semi-unlikable characters, and her knack for weaving both emotional tension and hopefulness into the story. The complexity of the supporting characters almost make this seem like an ensemble story although it's very definitely Jolene's story. This was a fun debut story, and I will absolutely read this author again!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this story, this is my honest and objective review. show less

"So many office situations show no regard for people with anxiety, yet we're the bad guys if we can't cope."

"What is it with HR people always being so... in people's business? Like you have to be part sociopath to go into that line of work."

"The thing about annoyance is that once there's a spark, you can find more things to stoke it. It grew and amplified between me and them. And eventually the abyss stared back."

"She inhales the top of the baby's head--which is a choice--then smiles and says to Celeste, 'So how is being a mum?'"

"A weight drills into my chest, hollow and heavy. It's like there are these pockets of sorrow waiting to be uncovered right below the surface. But we see them only sometimes, only by chance. Otherwise, we never show more know."

"Now that you're old, aren't you, like, allowed to do whatever you want without asking? But you never do. It's like you've grounded yourself."

"I moved here for you, and I wish I could know you better, but every time I come visit, you get mad at me for coming over and touching your special garbage in the cupboard."

I Hope This Finds You Well is a surprisingly tender workplace comedy that balances genuine humour with a very real exploration of loneliness. Jolene is stuck in an awful admin job and survives by typing petty complaints in white font at the bottom of her emails. When an IT glitch grants her access to everyone's private messages, she sees a way to save her job from impending layoffs. What starts as quirky office surveillance quickly deepens into something much more poignant, proving that keeping people out is just another way of trapping yourself inside. show less

ETA 12/24: I enjoyed this more as a re-read, because I already knew when the cringe moments would take place and could focus on the well-constructed characters instead. I had more sympathy for Jolene this time around; given her past trauma and the toxic workplace dynamics of her soul-sucking job, I might have resorted to the same kind of passive aggressiveness that got her in trouble.
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I had the unusual experience of being both eager to read and anxious to avoid this debut novel. Natalie Sue creates the type of FMC who is usually right up my alley - introverted, socially anxious, hiding a troubled past - but her morally gray behavior made me so uncomfortable that I could only manage a few chapters at a time.

Jolene Smith show more is an office drone for a supermarket chain who passive-aggressively adds snarky postscripts to her emails in white font so her coworkers can't read how much she despises them. One day, hungover from her nightly drinking, she forgets to change the font color and is reported by her office nemesis. Jolene's punishment is to endure weekly anti-harassment sessions with Cliff, the nice new HR analyst, and to allow the installation of monitoring software on her computer. But the new software mistakenly gives her administrative status, allowing her to read the entire staff's emails and DMs. Tired of being the office pariah, Jolene vows to use her newfound power to avenge herself by sabotaging her coworkers while elevating her own work.

To her credit, Jolene does try to alert Cliff to the technical glitch, but he misinterprets her concerns, leaving her free rein to feed her worst impulses. Frankly, I had to question Cliff's sanity for being so quickly smitten by a woman basically comprised of 75% vitriol and 25% alcohol. At home, Jolene alternates between drinking heavily and trying to avoid the needy, friendless middle schooler who lives in her apartment building. I know, I know - "hurt people hurt people."

Jolene's situation is complicated by cultural issues; her overly involved Persian parents and community raise the stakes when her plan inevitably explodes. Her redemption arc humanizes her without completely smoothing over her rough edges. Honestly, the fact that I had such a hard time with Jolene's behavior demonstrates Natalie Sue's skill at creating realistically flawed but relatable characters (and that I spent way too much of my working life sucking up to authority figures).

ARC received by NetGalley in exchange for objective review. show less

Best for:
Anyone who enjoys complicated narrators. Anyone who has worked in an office setting.

In a nutshell:
Jolene is an office worker who gets caught doing something unprofessional. As part of her improvement plan, she’s accidentally given access to everyone’s emails and chats.

Worth quoting:
“There’s no way this reality was the intended human experience.”

“Nobody is immune to thinking they might be wasting their only life on a place that can toss you out without a second thought.”

Why I chose it:
Rare Birds book club choice.

Review:
As soon as I read the synopsis of this book I knew I was going to enjoy it, so I waited until I had a free afternoon. I started this book after lunch and literally did not stop reading it until I show more finished it. I can’t recall the last time I did that, but this book was such an interesting and easy read. The writing is fantastic - I laughed out loud multiple times, and found the different characters to be quite well developed. There were a few plot twists that might be slightly far fetched but nothing too beyond belief.

Jolene is working an absolutely fine, average office job in a Walmart-type corporate office. She’s miserable, still not working through some rough times from her youth. So she does something ridiculous: she writes snarky comments at the bottom of her emails, and then changes the font color to white so they can’t see it. Except one time, in an email to her main coworker ‘rival,’ she forgets.

HR is involved, and while some security changes are made to here computer as part of her … not punishment, but you know what I mean … she somehow ends up with super admin rights, and every email and chat message is BCCd to her.

Jolene learns what her coworkers really think of her, from the interpersonal thoughts to undermining her work, while also going through training with an interesting new HR guy, Cliff. With her job on the line, she decides to make use of this new information, to both improve her lot in the company while also possibly undermining others around her.

I think the main point this book makes, and makes well, is that we don’t know what anyone else is really going through. And it’s not to make excuses for poor behavior - and people in this book do face consequences for their actions - it’s to ask that we think before we act. That a lot of people are hurting, and that while work matters in some respect, it certainly isn’t the whole or even the main part of a person’s life. And we can’t excuse our own errors in judgment because we are going through things, but we can be kind to ourselves and seek to do and be better every day.

That quote up there is something I think a lot, especially these days, with so much going on in the world - “There’s no way this reality was the intended human experience.” Petty games, cruelty, fighting with each other, underpayment, no time for joy. And office work is a picnic compared to other forms of labor. It’s so frustrating to think about what life could be, but also inspiring to think about what life still can be when we care for the people around us. show less