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There are currently 26 member reviews
for Help Wanted
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Barbara T
A look into the retail industry
This book is about a group of people working in a large retail store and their job is to unload merchandise and stock shelves before the store opened for business. Their department manager was a self-absorbed woman who felt she was on the fast track to be promoted into the position being vacated by the Store Manager. The workers have a plan to get her promoted so she’ll be out of their department and her current position would be open to one of them. The basic theme of the story is to keep reading until we find out who gets promoted.
The author did a good job of giving the reader a glimpse of the treatment of employees in the corporate America setting. It didn’t matter the workers had to work 2 jobs to make ends meet. The store’s “pat on the back for a job well done” mentality was sufficient compensation.
All in all, I feel this could have been told in short story form and not 275 pages.
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kate g
Too Many Characters, not enough Plot
This is a work place novel and there is a lot of detail about the work place. A general store, a step above Walmart, Town Square has its own drama, but the large number of characters made it hard for me to care about any of them. A little depressing as well, as all are struggling, except for the managers. Adelle Waldman has written a social critique, including important issues, especially racism and worker exploitation. It is too bad her prose and plot took away from her message.
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Melissa C. (Saint Johns, FL)
Average at Best
I was disappointed that I didn't really enjoy this book. I was hopeful that I would, given the serious subject matter of work force inequality. But I found the characters flat and not very interesting. Oh well - can't love them all.
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Donna W. (Wauwatosa, WI)
Help Wanted
This book started out well. The characters were easy to relate to and the story was very real. Unfortunately, as more character back stories were added it became confusing and the work dimension seemed to drag on. There was so much work-related detail that by the end of the book I had lost interest, and the outcome didn't have any impact.
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Bill Brown
Too Close To Me
I was not "blown away" with "Help Wanted". Ms. Waldman has produced multiple minor characters with semi-interlocked tragic flaws. One even meets up with Michael Vick. Why couldn't she have created a fictional football star? Before college. I worked in a similar firm, and I witnessed too many workers with no hope. The novel is too close to my memory bank.
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