In Office Hours

Dec 16, 2011 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars

My review for Library Journal:

This debut novel by a management columnist at the Financial Times does a very good job capturing the ins and outs of a fictional London megacorporation. However, while creating characters to which readers can relate, Kellaway didn’t manage to construct likable ones. Stella, a senior executive, and Bella, an administrative junior employee, both work for Atomic Energy; both find themselves involved in office romances. The novel uses a framing device to introduce the t

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Jul 07, 2011 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

I saw IN OFFICE HOURS being heavily advertised on the Tube during a recent trip to London and, being the author of an office-based, relationship-focused novel myself, felt compelled to pick it up. Based on the (British paperback) cover design, I expected it might be something of a chick-lit romp in which the topic--marital infidelity--was dealt with lightly, played for laughs, and/or presented as something easily forgiven either by the characters involved or, at least by the reader who is privy...more

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Feb 09, 2011 Joemmama rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is really the stories of two women, Stella, married to a successful documentary filmmaker, with children, middle aged and at the top of her game, and Bella, a young, single mother, doomed to be an assistant at the bottom rung of the success ladder. They both work for a major British Energy Company. They are both foolish women.

Stella embarks in an affair with a much younger assistant, leading to a bad end. Bella embarks in an affair with her boss, never a good idea. It made me wonder what th...more

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Oct 31, 2010 Esther Shaindel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Full review on Reader's Dialogue: http://readersdialogue.blogspot.com
In Office Hours is a tragic romance, following two women, working in the same office though in different departments and at different levels, who each have a romance with a co-worker - in Bella's case with her boss, and in Stella's case with her assistant. Switching back and forth between the two stories, which intertwine at points, the book details all the steps of the relationships - from the first tiny buds to the dramatic e...more Full review on Reader's Dialogue: http://readersdialogue.blogspot.com
In Office Hours is a tragic romance, following two women, working in the same office though in different departments and at different levels, who each have a romance with a co-worker - in Bella's case with her boss, and in Stella's case with her assistant. Switching back and forth between the two stories, which intertwine at points, the book details all the steps of the relationships - from the first tiny buds to the dramatic end of each, and finally to the closure each woman attains when it's all over.
I love this book! Besides feeling like I got an accurate picture of what goes on in an office and how relationships and gossip work in this setting, I acutely felt the ups and downs of each saga. And there are many of both! It felt so real, each event following so naturally from the other, and the emotions feeling so authentic and so clearly portrayed.
The emotional roller-coaster both characters go though totally affected me. I felt along with each of them (so I guess it's a good thing that the arcs of the two stories follow each other pretty closely, or else I really would have been up and down and up and down...!). Even when they were doing things that made no sense and I was saying "no, no, don't do that!" I understood why they were doing such ridiculous things, and I could really feel how love makes you do crazy things that you would never do otherwise.
I like the structure of the book as well. The love and romance (if you could call it that) are grounded in real life, they don't exist in a vacuum - it's very clear how the affairs affect each woman's (and the men's) life at work and outside of work. The different parts of the story are so closely interwoven that all the various pieces work together to create the fuller picture of what's going on. I do like, though, that the outside world is marginalized, which gives the effect of magnifying the romances to epic proportions, which seems to be what the lovers would feel - obsessing with the affair to the point that everything else fades to be only a minor irritation, and disappears whenever they're with their lovers.
The e-mail technique works really well, too. The writing and thinking and re-writing and re-thinking and re-re-writing sounds so real, because that is what actually happens in real life - thinking about how each word sounds before hitting send, hitting send and then regretting it...
I kept flipping back to re-read parts of the book, because each page is filled with so much emotion, and I definitely will be reading this book again in the future!

Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Book Group for providing a digital copy for review.(less)

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Aug 15, 2011 Jasmine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: british

so I already fake reviewed this book, but now I'm going to real review it, what that means is I'm going to bitch about my life first then insult the book.

so I read this over the weekend. "Oh is that the same weekend you got hit by a car" thanks for asking why yes it is. So friday a block from work I get hit by a car, I still go to work and I work all day. I'm in some pretty bad pain but 2 of the three people that teach in the other room didn't show up and the ones that did insist on working lik...more

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May 28, 2011 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, library-books

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. (Oh picking stars in Goodreads reviews. This is one of those "it was OK but I liked it anyway -- mostly" books, so I'm rounding up.)

In Office Hours, which traces two office romances (focusing on the woman in each affair: one is Stella, a middle-aged high-level executive who falls for Rhys, a 27-year trainee, and the other is Bella, a 27-year old personal assistant/researcher and single mom who falls for her middle-aged boss, James) is compelling, funny, and also somewhat maddening. By "compellin...more (Oh picking stars in Goodreads reviews. This is one of those "it was OK but I liked it anyway -- mostly" books, so I'm rounding up.)

In Office Hours, which traces two office romances (focusing on the woman in each affair: one is Stella, a middle-aged high-level executive who falls for Rhys, a 27-year trainee, and the other is Bella, a 27-year old personal assistant/researcher and single mom who falls for her middle-aged boss, James) is compelling, funny, and also somewhat maddening. By "compelling" I mean it was a book I raced through in the course of a few days, happy to pick it up at any spare moment and reluctant to put it down: one morning when I got to work early, I nearly sloshed my tea over a co-worker as I was making my way, while reading, from the kitchen back to my desk. Even knowing (as you know from the start) that neither Stella's nor Bella's affair ends well, it's hard not to get caught up in their passions as Kellaway flashes back to show the start and development of each entanglement. And when Kellaway's lampooning the absurdity of the corporate world, she can be quite funny: at one point, one department of the oil company where all the protagonists work gets merged with another: the CEO sends out a message to the company that reads, in part, "This move is aligned with our strategy of streamlining our support operations to provide critical added value at the point of delivery"—snort (25). But at other times, the writing seemed really clunky to me: maybe this is due to Kellaway and her characters being British and British English being more formal, though I don't know—I work for a company that's headquartered in England and I think I'd notice if my British colleagues talked the way that Kellaway's characters do. The dialogue was often stilted; the characters seemed hardly ever to use contractions, leading to passages like this:

The shit has really hit the fan with Stella. She has been in with Stephen and James all this time. I think they are drafting a statement, so I feel I needed to stay around. (315).

The start of the book was differently clunky, and made me exceedingly grumpy: the opening scene is of Stella at work, after her affair with Rhys has ended and she's moved on to a new job. She's checking her email, and she sees she has a message from him. OK, so far so good. Except the way Kellaway describes the mechanics of email-checking struck me as ridiculous and unrealistic: I understand that she perhaps has plot-driven reasons for describing things the way she does, but it's a rough first few pages: you're just meeting one of the protagonists, you're not invested yet in the characters or the story, and there are these sentences that jolt, like:

With an unsteady hand she picked up the mouse, highlighted his name, and clicked delete.
"Are you sure you want to delete this message?" the computer asked.
But that was the problem: No, she wasn't sure. (1)

Really? How often do you pick up your mouse (as opposed to just grabbing it)? Does your email client prompt you for confirmation of every message you delete (as opposed to bigger actions like emptying the trash)? Right. A few pages later there's this: "She took the mouse, moved it to the message, and clicked on it to open" (3). What's up with the play-by-play? I can almost read this sentence as an expression of how Stella, is feeling: maybe everything's a bit slowed-down and she's hyper-aware of every action she takes; the moment, maybe, feels momentous to her, an exciting/frightening moment on the edge of a decision. But mostly it just feels to me like too much detail not serving a purpose, just filling the space. There are similar passages later, too: at one point Bella sends an email by mistake, walks away from her desk, and then comes back and realizes she's sent it because the screen says "Message sent to James Staunton": really? "Message sent," maybe, but with the name and everything? In a supposedly realistic novel, I shouldn't be having to suspend my disbelief over the workings of computers.

More philosophically, the other thing that sometimes bothered me about this book was part of the central circumstances and premises: as Litlove puts it in her post on this book, "Kellaway buys into the ideology that affairs are punishments in themselves; the pleasure that Stella and Bella gain is far outweighed by the grief and stress of illicit relationships." Yes, that. And the basically heterosexual/basically monogamous framework was sometimes an issue for me: you get the sense that the affairs would be doomed even without the issues of office impropriety and the threat of discovery, because the non-married parties want their married lovers to leave their spouses, to choose them instead, and even at the end of the book everyone's concern, basically, is still with settling down into a partnership in one way or another: there's no sense of there being any other alternative.
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Mar 08, 2011 Brandi Doctoroff rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book really annoyed me, but I pushed through and finished it. There were a few times that I just kept thinking "put it down...it isn't worth it", but a very small part of me had to know what was going on.
First of all, I was so annoyed and confused by the fact that the main characters names were Bella and Stella. It was like I had to keep stopping and reminding myself which was which. Not that it really mattered, both women were pathetic, hopeless and completely self-centered.
It always make...more

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Jan 11, 2011 Nina rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've been working a total of three years now, and it's still very funny to me when the topic of workplace romance is broached during lunch hour. I've seen a few of my co-workers being romanced by their supervisors, managers, and what-not, but I have not given it much thought because they still maintain a professional attitude at work. I myself never explored such territory as I preferred having a boyfriend outside of my work environment. I am terribly easy to distract, and thinking about a boyfr...more I've been working a total of three years now, and it's still very funny to me when the topic of workplace romance is broached during lunch hour. I've seen a few of my co-workers being romanced by their supervisors, managers, and what-not, but I have not given it much thought because they still maintain a professional attitude at work. I myself never explored such territory as I preferred having a boyfriend outside of my work environment. I am terribly easy to distract, and thinking about a boyfriend - who is somewhere around the vicinity also working - in the midst of doing an enema to a geria patient, I'm afraid I would have lost my license very early on in my career. So when I read the synopsis for In Office Hours, I was mainly intrigued to see how it goes wrong, seeing as how I can only see when it goes right: One of my colleagues just married her supervisor, but she's resigning and would be busy making a home for him. Clearly, where I work, workplace romance is the last thing to worry about as it's always conducted decently and discreetly, so I wanted to explore a situation where it could ugly and distasteful.

The story revolves around two very capable and intelligent career women: Stella is one of the more senior executives in Atlantic Energy and her career could go nowhere but up. She's married to a previously successful film maker and has two children. Bella, on the other hand, is PA to Stella's colleague. She is a single mother in constant guard from her irresponsible and dangerous ex-boyfriend who keeps forcing to see their daughter. When her boss resigns, she is transferred to another senior executive and embarks on a clandestine relationship with him. Stella is assigned to handle two management trainees - one intelligent but bland female, and one insolent but very perceptive and talented male - and after being relentlessly pursued, begins an affair with her male trainee.

In Office Hours was supposed to showcase the emotional and professional dangers of illicit relationships with your co-workers - specifically your boss or your subordinate. It was meant to narrate two affairs with parallel beginnings, circumstances, and consequences. It was expected to reveal the exciting and dreadful risk of starting affairs in the office setting, while conducting business on the side. Yes, business on the side, because as exhibited in this book, the relationship takes centerstage and the business just playing second fiddle, if not completely ignored.

This book showed that, but sadly, nothing more.

I rarely drop something I do without finishing it. But I almost did not finish this book not because it was horrible or offensive but because even early on in the first few chapters, this book became a drag and if I could just skim through the rest and get to the ending already, I would have done so. But I almost never 'not finish' books because I felt as if I was doing the author a disservice. They wrote a book to be read. Maybe not from start to finish, but if you do not finish a book, what's the point then of a writer writing an ending? So I plodded onto the story even if it was really getting boring and repetitive already. While reading, I was trying to think which parts made me think that it was getting uninteresting, but I really could not point out something specific. The characters, while sometimes feeling like mere stereotypes, can actually make me feel some sympathy. The narration, alternating between Bella and Stella's points of view, is sometimes confusing but altogether consistent and solid.

Altogether, the plot, the characters, the idea of a book about illicit liaisons in the workplace is a unique, if not remarkable, but the way it was executed was only mildly interesting. Or maybe I am the wrong person for this book, as reading the reviews, it seems like a lot of people really liked the story. Again, it may just be a question of me not having the enough number of brain cells required for such reading, or maybe the book itself clearly has its shortcomings. But whatever the answer may be, In Office Hours is a good read for passing the time, while waiting for that email from that guy from the other department, or while counting down the hours before you meet your boss in some clandestine location to conduct some 'unbusinesslike' business.

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I received this book free of charge from the publisher, Hachette Book Group through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest and truthful review. This, in no way, affected my opinion or review of this book.(less)

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Mar 20, 2011 Christina (A Reader of Fictions) rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: netgalley

Stella is in her mid-forties, happily married with two children, and seriously successful at work. She is the only female executive at AE, a big oil company. Bella is in her late twenties/early thirties, a single mom, and works as a personal assistant (also at AE). Bella's boss, Julia, is fired because she had an affair with another man at the company. The story is told alternatively from both of their perspectives. The similarity in their names seems unnecessary in the context and leads largely...more Stella is in her mid-forties, happily married with two children, and seriously successful at work. She is the only female executive at AE, a big oil company. Bella is in her late twenties/early thirties, a single mom, and works as a personal assistant (also at AE). Bella's boss, Julia, is fired because she had an affair with another man at the company. The story is told alternatively from both of their perspectives. The similarity in their names seems unnecessary in the context and leads largely to confusion; it's not like the parallels between their lives would have been difficult to see without this connection.

I expected this to be a chick lit novel about office romance. Although chick lit has not been my genre of choice for a number of years, a good one here and there can be quite enjoyable. Office romances are a bad idea in general, but it's not like they don't happen. Still, this could have been a different book.

This novel seems to suggest three things.

1. Adultery happens. A lot. At least, if you're high-powered in a company.
2. Age gaps are hot. Successful women will date younger men and successful men will date younger women.
3. Women cannot focus on work in the midst of an affair, but men can.

The last of the three is the one that really pisses me off. During Stella's affair with her subordinate, he still manages to get his job done, but she mentions many times how little she cares about work compared to her trysts. She constantly skives off work for a rendezvous and is extremely non-productive. Despite that, she gets promoted and receives accolades for her excellent performance. Is this because even when half-mad with obsession she does amazing work or because the standards for female employees are lower and no one notices? Meanwhile, Bella seems to do very little, as her position was created so she can stay in the department with her cheating boss. She constantly invents reasons to go to his office and sends whiny text messages wondering why he is cold to her at the office.

Bella and Stella both obsess about their men constantly. The men certainly seem interested too, but are they really agonizing over whether a text message ends with an x? I just could not deal with how childish and absurd all of the people in this book were.(less)

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Apr 19, 2012 Annie Kookie rated it 2 of 5 stars

on page 270. Why am I reading this book? Because I decided to buy a book based on the fact that I picked it up. I can't say it's horrible but I'm certainly not inclined to give it 5 stars! Maybe by the time I finish the book I will have changed my mind but I don't think that very likely.
This would be a book I would've been much happier had I borrowed it from the library as at least I would not have spent money on it. The book may end up at the library yet.

After completing the book my mind has no...more

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Jul 10, 2010 Christine Williams rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was definitely best as a bus read. I mostly picked it up because they were having a 3 books for the price of 2 sale, which I can never resist, and because it's a British book, which I love. The idea behind it is absolutely fascinating, but I feel several things could have made it better, personally. The author, from what I can tell, is more into journalism than fiction, which shows in her characters as well as plot. The idea is fascinating, but I guess I wish she had gone into more detail a...more

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Aug 19, 2011 Tara rated it 5 of 5 stars

My thoughts:
This book is a Romance..kinda chick lit, but not a romance in the sense of the bodice-ripping-mass-market books you see at the grocery store. The romance is the main focus in the book, even though it gives the appearance of being chick lit. However, it's not a very light-hearted book - in fact I found myself crying a few times throughout the pages. I really couldn't put this book down. I started reading the book here and there whenever I had time to read a few pages, but once I hit p...more My thoughts:
This book is a Romance..kinda chick lit, but not a romance in the sense of the bodice-ripping-mass-market books you see at the grocery store. The romance is the main focus in the book, even though it gives the appearance of being chick lit. However, it's not a very light-hearted book - in fact I found myself crying a few times throughout the pages. I really couldn't put this book down. I started reading the book here and there whenever I had time to read a few pages, but once I hit page 50 I sat down and finished the rest of the 300 + pages in one sitting. It was SO great, I had to find out what was going to happen with Bella and Stella.

Although I knew when I started the book that there couldn't possibly be a happy ending for both of the main characters (Stella and Bella), I still was wishing the entire book that they could all live happily ever after. Stella (married) starts an affair with her much younger unmarried intern (Rhys), meanwhile Bella (Single Mom) becomes entangled with James (married) her much older boss. (You know you love all the parentheses).

The book isn't overtly sexual, however since this a book about extra-marital affairs, there are quite a few sex scenes. One of the most interesting ones, involves the Board Room Table. (ooo-la-la). The focus of the book wasn't really at all about the sex, it was more about the emotion that the characters (married or not) felt for each other. The book was very realistic and captured the emotions of the two women incredibly well. I was heartbroken, ecstatic, in love and obsessed right along with the two women.There were a lot of beautiful quotations throughout the book about love. Little things that Bella or Stella would say about their relationships really stuck with me.

I wish I could elaborate on a specific part of the book more because it really got to me, but I don't want to give away any major plot points. Let's just say it was really interesting to see the difference between the treatment of men and women in the workplace regarding their affairs.

The ending was not at all what I thought it would be, but it was still a strong solid ending. I absolutely loved this book. I immediately texted my best friend when I was through to let her know that she HAD to read this book RIGHT NOW!

Judge a Book By It's Cover: Looks really chick-lit-ish. The cover doesn't really depict the emotionally-driven novel. It is cute though!(less)

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Jan 09, 2011 Krysia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc-galley, fiction

Picked up a galley copy of this at the library. This is one of those quick what-can-I-finish-in-a-weekend/during-a-plane-ride type books. The fact that it is set in London and takes place at a high-powered company adds substance to the novel. The novel looks at two office affairs, which are kind of sad/tragic, and makes the reader think about their effects and after-effects from different viewpoints: gender, age, superior vs. underling, etc. The novel is part narrative/part epistolary as the cha...more

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Apr 21, 2011 Anna rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio

Apparently there was some study that showed that a quarter of British office workers had some kind of inappropriate relationship with a co-worker. Lucy Kellaway is a columnist for the Financial Times so she knows these sort of things. Seems pretty astonishing to me but since I don't know any details of the study and its methodology, I can't pass judgement on that. Bella is a single mother and a personal assistant having an affair with her boss, James. Stella is middle-aged, married and a hard-no...more

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Jun 15, 2013 Jacqueline rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this more than I expected to.
The observations of corporate life and the rife hypocrisy was clever and funny.
The only thing that really bugged me was the lack of speech marks. I battled my way through the speech working out who was saying what aloud and trying to decide if the were thinking it or actually saying it but it made it unnecessarily hard to read and interrupted the flow of the story.
I liked the way the prologue set up the story and prepared me for the ending. There's nothing...more

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Jun 15, 2010 Bettie rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Book at Bedtime, Radio 4 listeners

Shelves: published-2010, summer-2010, chick-lit, room-101

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Not for me - painful description of naff corporate procedures complete with a stab at the jargon that always did leave me cold

BBC blurb - "In Office Hours" is the new novel by Lucy Kellaway about men and women at work, and illicit love. In today's opening episode, changes are underway at the oil giant, AE, and new challenges beckon high flying Stella Bradberry, and the PA Bella Chambers.

The latest novel from the columnist, Lucy Kellaway, is a witty and sharply observed exploration of today's con...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Gaby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-romance, chicklit

In Office Hours gives us the humor and lightness of women’s fiction in the context of office romances. Lucy Kellaway captures the complexity and difficulty of the carrying on a love affair at work with sensitivity and wit. Whether women are dating someone significantly more powerful or considerably junior - these love affairs carry huge risks.

In Office Hours, Lucy Kellaway gives us an intelligent and funny approach to love and its resulting heartbreak.

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Apr 24, 2012 Rachel rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: huge-disappointment

Read this book because it was going cheap in the local charity shop and i needed something to read for a long train journey. Hm its easy to say i was really disappointed, it seemed to suggest that affairs will happen in high business places and just have to accept it. I did not like the writing style the use of quotation marks annoyed me but thats my OCD kicking in really. Let down by the book but it was better than staring out a train window for 3-4 hours.

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Jul 23, 2011 Jo rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011, contemporary

I got half-way through her previous book, and gave up as I found it so unfunny, but was persuaded to give this ago, and it's completely different. I expected it to be humorous but it wasn't funny at all. It's about two women at an oil company in London who have affairs with colleagues: Stella, a senior executive, married with children and a seemingly perfect life, falls in love witha young trainee, while Bella, the young single mother PA, falls for her boss. The book is a good warning to anyone...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Cathy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: british-chick-lit, business, marriage, working-girl, london

Absolutely adored this novel. Full of juicy gossip and serious scandal, this book was clad full of all kinds of details meant for watercooler banter - quite literally, as this novel wove two stories together of two British women, whose affairs with co-workers have them leading a double-life. Caught up in romance and debauchery, Stella and Bella are riding a rollercoaster with fate and what seems like everlasting excitement quickly turns into turmoil and disappointment. British author, Lucy Kella...more

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Jul 15, 2011 Melissa rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I've read this...but it's true, I succumbed to the world of chick lit. And not surprisingly, it didn't change my life. I did enjoy the London setting, however. With about a hundred pages left I got really sick of the characters and grudgingly finished the rest of the book. But if you're looking for a summer read with a lot of, mmhmm, indiscretions, this is the book for you!

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Mar 11, 2012 Aileen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is about 2 women who both work for the same Company who have an affair with male work colleagues. It was a slow start but picked up after the first 122 pages, it's split into parents and it is easy to read, I couldn't put it down, I would definetely recommend. A quick read.

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Jan 24, 2013 Contessina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, contemporary-romance

Doğan Kitap'ın bu ayki mûcizesi. Aynı ofiste çalışan iki kadının hayatlarından dramatik birer kesiti eş zamanlı olarak anlatıyor. Özetle, kiminin aşk dediğine kimisi tutku, kimisi heyecan diyor. Kimin aşık olduğunu kimin gönül eğlendirdiğini kavramakta zorluk çekeceksiniz.

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Mar 31, 2011 Allison rated it 3 of 5 stars

I liked the story, but the two main characters were Stella and Bella - why would you do that? It was super annoying the whole way through. I've been reading a lot of kid lit lately and this was a nice jump back into the adult world.

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Feb 15, 2011 Anita rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up at Barnes and Nobles and read it in two days. Very sweet, quite different from the usual read. The characters really stay with you. I love British books I haven't heard of - they are so often a great treat.

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Aug 12, 2012 Diane Vallere rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. Everything about it: cover to ending. I started reading it yesterday, put it down to go to bed last night and got up twice during the night to keep reading. At times it had a "Working Girl" feel about it, maybe the environment of office politics and secret affairs. At one point I thought the ending might be predictable, but I was happily surprised to see that it wasn't. I highly recommend it!

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Jan 27, 2013 Marrit rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Funny and sometimes even a bit clever but that's about it. It's very light-hearted entertainment and in places almost seems like a parody of itself. The characters are mostly flat and annoying and while the book is trying to give some psychological view on the subject matter (having an affair with one of your colleagues, or rather; one who's either higher or lower up in the business than you are so there's power inequality), but it's a bit too ridiculous to be believable at basically any given p...more

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Aug 15, 2010 Brenda rated it 3 of 5 stars

It was a good story, but not entirely plausible in my view. However, Lucy Kellaway did a lot of research before writing this book, so perhaps I'm just very naive.

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Mar 06, 2013 Ineke Van rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoy Lucy Kellaway's articles in the FT. She writes well and this book is no exception in that respect. It is amusing, sometimes even poignant Chick-lit and she has drawn well on her insights into office life, the business world and present-day cliche vocabulary, if perhaps a bit predictable.

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May 10, 2011 Will rated it 3 of 5 stars

When observing office life it's wonderful; the situations ring sharply tru and the dialogue zings. But the romance begins to drag at times.

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