Because so many of the GoodReads folks are participants or graduates of MFA programs, and because Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris is so obviously the product of an MFA program, I thought to hedge and give this book three stars. But that would be dishonest.

Truth is, but for 34 pages in the middle of this novel, I didn't enjoy Ferris's debut at all. Oh, it's witty and flippant and clever and occasionally funny, but ultimately it's not enjoyable.

It fails for the reason so many MFA-workshop More...

I LIKED:
(1) How funny it was;
(2) The first-person-plural voice, which could have backfired but didn't for me;
(3) The guy who quotes Emerson (it was around here that I started to feel actual warmth for the characters, even when I couldn't keep them straight);
(4) The Catch-22ishness (though it wasn't slavishly Catch-22esque, which you might initially think);
(5) The very last line, which maybe could be considered gimmicky, but worked for me and which I read with what I guess I would call a "sat More...

I was tempted to write this review in the plural first person so that you all would be impressed with how clever I am, but, fuck it, I have a novel to write and papers to grade! (Plus, what if you thought I was speaking in the royal 'we' or the blogger 'we' and the whole experiment just failed?!)

Ferris displays some technical savvy in this book. The point of view tired me out on my first attempt, but a month or so later I returned to the novel with an open mind (and heart, I suppose), able to fa More...

It's funny how certain books just come along at exactly the right time in your life. I read 'Franny & Zooey' when I was right out of college and just starting my life as a post-grad in the city, and it really spoke to me. I read 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' the summer before my senior year, when I was panicking about what I was going to do with the rest of my life, and it completely changed the way I looked at myself and the world around me. If I had read 'Then We Came to the More...

I had a love-hate relationship with this book. We got off on the wrong foot to start, since the blurbs had led me to expect the read to be a laugh-filled riot. It does have its funny moments, but the overall tone was much more despairing than one would expect from its copy. In addition, the large cast of characters and first-person plural narration left me grasping for someone to relate to. I kept reading mainly because I enjoyed the references to my hometown.

About half-way through the book, how More...

I really, really, really enjoyed reading this book. It wasn't a life changing experience, it didn't inspire me to be a better person, or to follow my dreams. It was just a fun read. I'll turn 37 in a few days and for the first time in my life I'm working in an office building, in a cube. Before I got this job, I thought The Office and Office Space were funny, but now I really get them. It's the same with this book. I don't think you have to work in an office to get it, but it's sort of like hav More...

I wanted to like this book, but it just didn’t work for me. To vault directly to the ending, that in particular let me down. Big fat gimmick. If that was one of the main purposes for the use of the first person plural, then I felt somewhat like the victim of a shaggy dog joke.

At first, the first person plural seemed fine with me, but ultimately I think what it did was, instead of involving me as a participant, as part of the “we,” it distanced me from the book. On reflection, I think it was beca More...

Sorry, haters. Review to come, possibly, as soon as I reclaim my chair--my legitimate chair!

Update: So, yeah, this is a home run. Deserving of every inch of its hype. It's too bad, however, that so much of the buzz focused on comparisons to The Office and Office Space (nothing against those fine entertainments) and the workplace-drone genre of humor. Because this book kind of is part of that on a surface level, but it's so much more--so much more expansive, humane, ambitious, detailed and moving More...

I came upon this book on one of the book blogs I read after it was short-listed for the National Book Award. The reviews compared Joshua Ferris' debut novel in tone & content to "The Office," the best 30-minute network sitcom since Seinfeld and a current obsession of mine. So, Then We Came to the End sounded like it had good possibilities. And when I came to the end of it, I found myself having enjoyed it, despite some obvious flaws.

I have to start by commenting on the first-person plural n More...

The first thing to say about this book is that no matter what else I think about the plot, the themes, the point of view, or any other aspect of this novel, it was compulsively readable, which in itself is a mark of how fine a talent Joshua Ferris is.

In some ways, he is plowing the same ground as Douglas Coupland and Dilbert, but without the manic surrealism of the one or the cartoonish brevity of the other. Virtually the entire plot of "Then We Came to the End" takes place in a few floors of a More...

OK, I picked up this book because I had read several good reviews of it. And it sounded interesting. I work in an office. This book takes place in an office. I love the TV show "The Office." Some readers of this book compared the two.

Then I read the book. And hated every minute of it. I finished it because I was determined to see why this author got such rave reviews on this, his first novel. Were people reading the same book I was? It wasn't funny. It was tedious. Maybe that's the point, to hel More...

In his first effort, Ferris creates a book that is somewhat like peanuts: you just keep on reading, not actually paying complete attention. Ferris is successful in re-creating the atmosphere of a downward-spiraling workplace, showing the characters' behaviors, motives, and interactions deteriorating along with the company's fortunes.

Ferris also portrays the feelings of a woman facing cancer surgery in a completely believable and moving way. This part of the book is told from a third person p.o.v More...

I think it's telling that so many of our best and most popular artistic endeavors from the past ten years have come from people trying to make sense of the modern day work place. It is also telling that most of these efforts, movies like "Office Space" and T.V. shows like "The Office" for example, include some element of satire or dark humor. I'm still working on my theory as to why that is. It may have something to do with the "quiet desperation" many of us cube dwellers feel, and our need to f More...

Trish read this a while ago and suggested it to me at the time. I had so many books on my plate then I sort of ignored the recommendation. But then the book got shortlisted as a National Book Award nominee, so I pushed it ahead of the pile. It's wonderful. I loved it and I think I actually liked it more than Trish did.

The book takes place at the end of the 1990's. The nation is undergoing severe economic drag and companies all over the world are laying off employees right and left. In Chicago, t More...

This book is just different. Not in a bad way, not neccesarily in a good way either. The beginning of the books is very funny, going over all the petty irritations we all suffer at work. Then it gets kind of serious. Actually, I would have given this 3 stars, if not for the fact that I am shocked at how well this male author gets inside the mind of a career woman. The insecurities, the second guessing involved with the fact that although you have decided marriage and kids just might not be for y More...

For me, this book followed the same trajectory as The Office (US). It starts off subtle and real and funny in an everyday way, making you appreciate the characters' quirks and start to love them. There's some bits of wackiness here and there that makes you pause for a moment to think, "Hey, that's a little over the top," but you realize it's justified because there's a moderate amount of crazy in all of us. And then there's a sad, touching moment that makes you realize that you really, really do More...

I have too much of this book marked up to ever be able to catalog all the good parts here.

"What I'm trying to get at here is that I'M NOT SURE ANY OF US KNOWS just how far we have removed ourselves not only from nature but from the natural conditions of life that have prevaliled for centuries and have forced men to the extreme limits of their physical capacity in order simply to feed, clothe, and otherwise provide for their families, sending them every night to a sweet exhausted, restorative, un More...

“Do you realize how insane we’ve all become?”

In the post-Dilbert world of “The Office,” examinations of the everyday absurdities and indignities of office culture have become more and more commonplace. But rarely are they captured with such acuity, humor and grace as in Joshua Ferris’ stellar debut novel, “Then We Came to the End” (a New York Times top 5 fiction book of 2007). Office ennui is relatively easy to portray because, let’s be honest, anyone who has ever worked in an office has exper More...

We first saw the reviews referring to it as an existential version of The Office which peaked our interest because it combined two things that we loved and that described our lives. Then Pete and Blade emailed us to say that Willis had recommended it to them and they loved it and had both independently agreed that it was something that Dup would love. We heard Dup went over to brunch with Willis and Lia and borrowed Willis's copy. He loved it and read it a week and then passed it on to LaKetch. More...

this one takes a unique turn in narrative point of view that I found fascinating. The story is told from the first person perspective of an employee at a top Chicago ad agency. This is in the time leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, during the crash of the internet boom, when lots of creative types are losing jobs. Yet the narrator never mentions "I." We learn absolutely nothing about him or her. The story is all about the other employees, and the narrator uses the collective "we" throughout. Halfway More...

I guess the first thing that should be said is that I think the book deserves the attention it got this year as much as any book ever does, and I think it's one for posterity. I wish I could give it 4.5 stars, but since you can't do that, it's gotta be 4 for me, because (a) I thought some of the beginning parts were weak and (b) some of the characters took up far more of the plot than they should have, probably to make the book more humorous. (Laugh rate is about 1 per every 5-10 pages.)

Althoug More...

I will admit that I approached this book the sort of skepticism (read: jealousy) that I reserve for young writers publishing their first book. But I have to admit, Then We Came to the End is quite good. It's a story of a bunch of people who work in a corporate advertising firm that is beset with layoffs. And the characters are engaging, more or less believable, and have great, often funny, fitting dialogue. It's mostly written in the first person plural, which is a bit gimmicky, but comes off a More...

Possibly it's not fair that I rate this book, as I was unable to finish it. I enjoyed it at first, but as the pages wore on (and on, and on) with nothing in them of forward motion or tension (I understood there was no plot and was willing to go with that, but I needed something, something -- please!), I lost interest. Another problem was that there was only one character (the woman boss with cancer) to care about at all. Even my own many years' experience of cubicle-ville failed to help me stay More...

maybe you have to have lived in a certain kind of cubicle warren to have the fondness i do for this book, but i liked it awfully. it's a funny thing, these people you see more than your family, who are simultaneously marginal and unmissable, who end up defining most of your days despite their status as not-even-quite-friends. i'll admit to a certain maudlin nostalgia for the community of pre-2001 software dev groups. somehow, that stuff gets me, even if that job made me want to stab my own eye o More...

This novel is simply brilliant. The sayings that one character pins up in his cubicle are described as "ludicrous and heartfelt," and for me that sums up Then We Came to the End also. It's tremendously funny but also deeply empathic, unafraid to conjure up real darkness. The control of tone--which prevents the book from becoming either gimmicky or bathetic--never falters. How did Ferris do it?

This book was such a pleasure to read. I was worried about the first person plural thing initially- but it totally works, and Joshua Ferris should be very proud of himself for writing such a good first book.

I read this book because I read Joshua Ferris's excellent contribution to the New Yorker's "20 Under 40" feature this summer. I was not disappointed in my selection.

Then We Came to the End is a witty, creative, ultimately satisfying novel. I say "ultimately" because there was a stretch in the middle section of the book where I wondered if all the funny anecdotes were being told for their own sake or if there was going to be a plotline to tie everything together. Eventually, and thankfully, a sto More...

This book is about a fictional ad office in downtown Chicago. This book is Ferris’ first, and while not genius or life changing, it is worth the read. The book is written in first person plural, so statements begin with we. We went to Benny’s office (we are ALWAYS going to Benny’s office). We made fun of Marcia’s hair and love of rock ballads behind her back. While that took some getting used to, so did the time line of the narrative. You aren’t sure what events are happening in what order, and More...

At times this book felt more like an anthropological study of early 2000s American office work. Many of the details were well observed and they helped me enjoy these less-than-novelistic spots, even though I could see readers unfamiliar with cubes, fancy computer chairs and free food in the pantry being bored completely. This tedium isn't really a short-coming of Ferris' writing because part of the office life that he's recreating is the shallow ennui that only gets broken by occasional moments More...