MixedUSA TodayFerris' debut novel, set in the cubicles of a Chicago advertising firm as the dot-com boom shuddered its last, is a charming and sometimes very funny story of worker bees pushed past the brink of boredom … Ferris maintains a wonderfully wry tone and has a fine observational eye for all the absurdities of the modern workplace. Disgusting smells surface, and it turns out someone hid a sushi roll in an enemy's office. A boss rolls his bike into his office and locks the front wheel and frame together as if it might be stolen at work. (Actually, considering all the pranks, that's probably a good idea.) But despite his earnestness and empathy for these characters, Ferris never really makes them whole — certainly not whole enough to sustain nearly 400 pages.
