Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris
My Rating: 4/5 Stars
First person plural isn’t a voice I often see in fiction, even though I did happen to read two of these books rather close together. Both had omniscient voices taking a look at multiple characters (the former was a family and this one was an office). Both were humorous, and both strung zany along with a dog leash and shock collar, zapping my mind at the most inopportune of times, and jolting my reality with more than just innuendo. But that’s where the similarities end, and I must say I couldn’t be more pleased with the resulting differential equation.
If you’ve ever considered your coworkers weird, and believed wholeheartedly that you were the normal individual in this corporately bureaucratic world, this book is for you. If you’ve ever walked down the hallway and had to physically restrain yourself from throttling a coworker about the neck, this book is for you. If you’ve ever wondered why management couldn’t get their shit together, and instead started firing people left and right without any rhyme or reason, and you found yourself sucking your thumb on the unemployment line, this book is for you. If you’ve ever wanted to walk out of a corporate meeting, because the idiot behind the podium has diarrhea of the mouth, and can’t seem to close his mouth for more than two seconds to answer a flippin’ question, even as you’ve waved your hand in the air for the past five minutes, this book is for you. If you’ve ever wanted to strip to your underwear and run through the halls screaming that the entire office staff, including administrative assistants and accountants, are all a bunch of morons, and that you’re done with this place, this book is for you.
So, yeah, at this point we’ve probably pretty much included everybody. And that’s okay, because as the economy pretty much shoves its thumb up its own butthole, you’re going to need a good laugh as you’re walking Spanish (shitcanned) and polishing the turd. THEN WE CAME TO THE END delivers laughter and chuckles amidst the corporate machine otherwise known as greed, and I couldn’t help but get caught up in the debauchery.