Snow-delayed Book Report: Then We Came To The End

Sorry everyone - we had a bit of a snow squall here yesterday afternoon. Lucky also had a vet appointment. I thought I would be able to get up there and back and have time to write my book report... but in the slow snow traffic it took me about 70 minutes to drive 7 miles up the road. By the time I got home past 8pm, I hadn't had dinner yet and all I wanted to do was curl up in my flannel jammies on the sofa. Lucky is okay - he has a bit of a upper respiratory infection, but now has medication to take care of it.

Without further ado - this week's book report is on Joshua Ferris' Then We Came To The End.

I had such high hopes for this book. I first read about it in a New York Times article on the best books of 2007. Even before I saw what the book was about the title intrigued me. I later learned the title was an homage to another book - Don DeLillo's Americana.

This book is the story of a corporate office in the early 1990's Chicago and what happens when business starts dwindling and layoffs become a painful reality. It's rather timely considering the news you hear every day - Company X laying off 2000 workers, shutting down this call center, outsourcing work, etc. Sounds pretty morbid, right? Well, once I found out that the book was a dark comedy about layoffs, I snapped it up.

I'll admit I snickered in parts. On page 5 you will find, "Karen Woo always had something new to tell us [in staff meetings] and we hated her guts for it. She would start talking and our eyes would glaze over." Omigod, that is me! But, for the most part Ferris' passive prose drove me bonkers and toward there seemed to be some continuity problems toward the end. I am not going to go out of my way to recommend this book - for laughs concerning this subject matter you would get more out of "The Office" episode where Michael Scott has to decide who to lay off.