FIRE ME

Author: Libby Malin ISBN: 9781402217579 5/2009 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: SOURCEBOOKS

One day, a dysfunctional office, and a budding romance. Anne Wyatt has finally had it with incompetent co-workers, a boss who runs hot and cold, and meaningless busywork with impossible deadlines. But the day she goes in determined to hand in her resignation, she learns that her boss is planning to let someone go. She changes course, deciding to try for the lay-off and the severance package that goes with it. Throughout the day, she engages in hysterical antics designed to attract her boss' negative evaluation, egged on by Ken, the handsome graphic designer in the next cubicle, who has his own ideas for liberation from the corporate grind. In the end, together Anne and Ken have to decide what is important in life, and what they need to discard without a second glance.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

After putting off announcing her resignation for as long as possible—she’s supposed to be starting her new job clear across the country in a matter of days—Anne’s boss announces that in order to save money, the company needs to fire one person. But the unlucky person will not be the one with the least seniority or the one with the lowest productivity. Instead, all of the employees will have until the end of the day to show the boss why they deserve to be there. And to show that there’s no hard feelings, the poor sucker who gets axed will get a pretty respectable severance package. Upon hearing this news, Anne decides to muck up her day so badly her boss (and former lover, but shhh) will have no choice but to let her go. If she gets fired, then she won’t have to quit! And she’ll get the severance package as a bonus! And so begins Anne’s day long comedy of accidentally-on-purpose errors.

FIRE ME was really funny. It was a fast paced, page turner and I couldn’t wait to see what Anne would do next to foil her boss’s schedule. From painting her nails with particularly noxious nail polish to ordering sticky buns for the entire office and charging it to the boss’s personal account, Anne’s antics kept me giggling. There’s a romantic subplot that I found less than convincing since the book spans less than 24 hours, but I’m willing to forgive Ms. Malin since the rest of the book was so cute. FIRE ME is Libby Malin’s first chick lit book in 4 years—I hope she writes faster in the future!

Jilian Vallade