A review by mamalemma
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

3.0

Hailed by reviews as "Catch-22" for the corporate office, and written in the first person plural, this was a tough book to get into. I like books best when I can get to know and appreciate the characters within them, but the conceit of this book is to make the reader part of the office crowd. As such -- like with a real office -- it takes time to get to know the quirks of the office characters, and the workaday conflicts, fun, and back stories of the office mates. Perhaps that is why I feel conflicted -- it took quite a while to get into the book, but once I started to get to know the characters, I felt more involved. However, much like real office mates, not so involved to feel close to the characters. Like an office, it was fairly easy to put the people in the book aside when I wasn't reading it. In that sense, the book is somewhat of a triumph. In the traditional sense of fiction, though, what really makes reading worthwhile is getting to know and deeply care about someone else's perspective, and this book really only offers that in one sub-plot that deviates from the first person collective. Not unsurprisingly, that was the most compelling part of the book for me. An interesting, if likely fairly forgettable, read.