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Then We Came to the End: a Novel | 
| Author: Joshua Ferris
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  102 reviews
Sales Rank: 4230
Media: Paperback
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0141027630
EAN: 9780141027630
ASIN: 0141027630
Publication Date: January 4, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 97 more reviews...
 Stick with it - it pays off December 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The first third of this book is quite sharply written, but really not all that engaging. It is episodic and rather aimless, and while many of the vignettes are mildly amusing or mildly intriguing, the characters are mostly unsympathetic and it fails to draw you in. I read the first 80 pages or so and stalled on it. My wife tried it and only managed 50.
Eventually, I ran out of other reading material and went back to it - and my opinion changed the moment the focus shifted from general office merriment/misery to pinpoint boss Lynn (who up to that stage had been a rather peripheral presence) and her cancer treatment. Suddenly, this book had found a heart, and from there on I could barely put it down. There was a real and powerful truthfulness in the way the fear, and even the dark humour, of a life-threatening illness was conveyed. I suddenly 'got' what all the setup was for, and even when the action shifted back to the wider cast of characters I was captivated, through the startling return of Tom Mota until I, too, Came to the End, satisfied and strangely refreshed.
So many books start out strong only to disappoint in the end, it was startling to find one going so powerfully the other way. I would urge you not to hope for too much from the early pages - they really needed a good, strong edit - but it all comes together in the end with wit and warmth and a feeling of optimism and new beginnings which will give hope to many in today's climate of redundancy and financial meltdown.
 Not sure! November 25, 2008
Well I finished this book this morning and I really cannot decide whether I liked it or not. The book is set in a failing Chicago advertising agency which is what mainly drew me to the book as up until six months ago I was working in a failing advertising department for a newspaper so I suppose I may have been looking for a little bit of nostalgia.
The characters are the driving force of Ferris' work as until the end not much happens. The characters are fantastic though, you have Marcia Dwyer who has hair from the 80's; Tom Mota who does not leave when sacked; Larry and Amber having an affair; Lynn Mason dying from Cancer and Joe Pope who nobody really knows anything about.
Ferris has captured perfectly office life and the inevitable office politics that comes with it. As I was reading I could identify with so much of it; the meetings about meetings, the pointless e mails; being territorial about your stationary and working alongside people all day but not really knowing them. The events that do happen in the book are gradually built up and serve different purposes. How people behave at work is often a result of what is happening in their personal lives but often at work we do not take the time to find out what your colleague does when they leave the office at night. Ferris also explores through the character of Lynn Mason the fine line between colleague and friend. When her employees find out that she is ill they struggle to decide what to do; should they just ignore that they know or can they rally round and show their support?
I think that Joshua Ferris' book will have anyone that has ever worked in an office nodding in agreement as they read and identifying with the mundanity of work. However for anyone that has luckily not had an office job I am really not sure if they would get it but maybe that's the author's point?
Original, funny, close to life November 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I first started reading I thought the "we" viewpoint would annoy me but having finished it ina matter of hours, I think the author has pulled it off with incredible skill.
It's original, funny, close to life and all those things that a good book should be: the characters are absolutely fascinating and believable, the plot strands are very carefully woven together.
I can understand those who don't want to read about work when they aren't there, but unlike working in my office, I really feel that it's telling me something new about the world. Very enjoyable.
Good but not as good as the hype November 3, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
'We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fiteen.'
This book is funny - about work in offices and in advertising. The characters are mainly cyphers. Our narrator is one of the gang but we gradually come to understand the different personalities as they live through being fired or the fear of being fired. The boss they all fear has breast cancer and part of the novel is her story in a very different voice which we later find is that of one the gang - an aspiring novelist.
As others here have said the hype has been misleading but this is a funny and original novel - very good on the paranoia of office life.
 Nagging feeling October 24, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I was taken in by the blurb on the cover and that probably set my expectations too high. The overriding feeling though, throughout reading this was that it is a poor, less funny book in the style of Douglas Coupland. If you loved this book (like so many people seemed to do) then try Microserfs and JPod by Coupland and see, in my opinion, how it should be done and how funny this kind of subject can be.
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