“You can’t legally brag about your son since you named him “Carl”.”

Jolene copes with her soul-sucking job by pretending to be invisible and ranting at her coworkers in emails in white text. But when she’s found out, she’s sentenced to anti-harassment training with the cute new HR rep and restrictions on her computer – except it turns out that she’s accidentally been given access to the emails of every single of her coworkers instead.

Often funny and often sad and very much filled with petty office politics which verge just on unbelievable sometimes. Jolene is a sympathetic character, even as she consistently makes the wrong choice, and I related to how depression can sometimes make one terribly self-centered and forget about anyone else outside your head. I really enjoyed her slowly budding romance with Cliff (and how him being HR lent it such a flavor of the forbidden!) and friendships with her coworkers.

Her backstory might have been a little overwrought though, and that combined with a subplot about a neglected neighbor child, even though I did enjoy it, did make the story feel too full to bursting. The ending seemed to wrap up a little too neat and quick though, for Jolene but especially for her coworkers’ storylines. Another chapter or two to bridge the gap and lead into the denouement would have been great.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Nasim Pedrad, which was truly excellent. Pedrad does a great job of Jolene’s sometimes snarky and sometimes fragile voice, and alternates between pathos and bathos easily as the narrative voice demands.