BookView Review rated it:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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Pub date August 25, 2017

ISBN 9781974128839

Price $10.99 (USD) Paperback, $0.75 Kindle edition

author inetrview

Baer explores a young man’s navigation of office politics, from 1995 through early 2000s in Manhattan, in this captivating work. Gary Strickland, the recent college graduate, is getting ready to propose his childhood sweetheart Angela Wexler when he learns he has lost his job as an accountant. Within days he lands another job as a collection manager, but he is little prepared for the manipulations and chaos of work politics. Gary must abandon his livelihood before the office politics crush him, or remain for his family’s sake and risk his sanity. Richly imaginative and expertly executed, Baer’s tale shows how the young couple work past the difficulties in their lives through their resilience and love for each other. Effortlessly weaving the various threads of the plot together, Baer skillfully gets inside his characters’ heads, bringing out their conflicting emotions as well as their complicated relationships. He renders the pair of Gary and Angela and their struggles with skill, and explores the complicated state of mind that Gary finds himself in while trying to go with the flow so as not to lose his job. By turns sharp satire and nuanced coming-of-age story, this wholly engrossing tale delivers a thoughtful exploration of greed for power, treachery, preconceived notions, and what it means to find one’s own path in the face of difficulties.

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