Company by Max Barry

At Zephyr Holdings, no one has ever seen the CEO. The beautiful receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else, but does no apparent work. One of the sales reps uses relationship books as sales manuals, and another is on the warpath because somebody stole his donut.

This book made me giggle even though I hadn't read it yet. And it made me giggle when I was reading it, for sure. I remember when I was reading Max Barry's previous book Jennifer Government I was wondering if he was able to pull off his writing style for the whole book (which he was) so with this book I was wondering if he was going to be able pull off another one like that. And yes, he is. Company is very well written with laugh-out-loud dialog and (dare I say it?) realistic, likable characters. I really took liking to the main character Jones, and generally too the characters are much nicer than in JG, and the evil assholes like John Nike are blissfully absent.

Company is familiar to anyone who reads Dilbert (except I don't think Scott Adams would be capable of writing anything this good that goes on for over 300 pages), and in the same way anyone who's ever worked in an office, really. It's hilarious and it makes you want to read bits out loud and laugh, but at the same time it's scary and painful in it's familiarity. Since the crucial plot twist actually happens really early in the book, I can't really say more about that - but that quote should really be enough to wet your appetite if it's your type of book.

Posted by kolibri at 23 January 12:50, 2006

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