Then We Came to the End: A Novel
by Joshua Ferris
Book Summary Information
Author: Joshua FerrisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-02-26
ISBN: 031601639X
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780316016391
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
- Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
Book Reviews of Then We Came to the End: A Novel
Book Review: Read Slab Rat instead
Summary: 3 Stars
Never as good as I wanted it to be. There are a few reasons for this:
* It was just too long (385 pages). Cutting 50 pages would have really helped. I found myself counting the pages until it ended.
* The wasn't any character I could really relate to. They were all petty and mean-spirited, and maybe that was the point of the book, since it takes place in the high-stress world of advertising and during layoffs no less, when everyone is hoping they are not the one cut.
* The first person plural narrative, though maybe hard to write, kept me at a distance, and I never felt included, or part of the story. I wish it was just a straight first person.
* The setting of the book--the workplace--has been done before, and done better. Just off the top of my head: Office Space (film), The Office (TV), and Slab Rat (novel) by Ted Heller.
But there are things I liked about the book. The author did an excellent job of juggling the many characters, and keeping their personalities distinct and consistent. The humor, though never laugh-out-loud, was real and true to the characters. I never felt like the characters were cliches. The day-to-day drudgery of working in an office environment really comes through here--the bull sessions to kill time, the watching of the clock, the "real" life you have outside of the office on the weekends, the forced closeness you have with your co-workers, the way you can know someone so well, but not really know them at all.
So, a mixed review. Overall, I liked it more than not and give it three stars.
Summary of Then We Came to the End: A Novel
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.
Amazon Best of the Month Spotlight Title, April 2007: It's 2001. The dot-com bubble has burst and rolling layoffs have hit an unnamed Chicago advertising firm sending employees into an escalating siege mentality as their numbers dwindle. As a parade of employees depart, bankers boxes filled with their personal effects, those left behind raid their fallen comrades' offices, sifting through the detritus for the errant desk lamp or Aeron chair. Written with confidence in the tricky-to-pull-off first-person plural, the collective fishbowl perspective of the "we" voice nails the dynamics of cubicle culture--the deadlines, the gossip, the elaborate pranks to break the boredom, the joy of discovering free food in the breakroom. Arch, achingly funny, and surprisingly heartfelt, it's a view of how your work becomes a symbiotic part of your life. A dysfunctional family of misfits forced together and fondly remembered as it falls apart. Praised as "the Catch-22 of the business world" and "The Office meets Kafka," I'm happy to report that Joshua Ferris's brilliant debut lives up to every ounce of pre-publication hype and instantly became one of my favorite books of the year. --Brad Thomas Parsons
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