In a book club? Please take our annual Book Club Survey

Read advance reader review of Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman, page 4 of 4

Summary | Reviews | More Information | More Books

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

Help Wanted

A Novel

by Adelle Waldman

  • Critics' Consensus (28):
  • Published:
  • Mar 2024, 288 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Reviews


Page 4 of 4
There are currently 26 member reviews
for Help Wanted
Order Reviews by:
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Read-Alikes

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Bluest Eye
    by Toni Morrison
    The story of a black girl in America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others. First published 1970; won the 1993 Nobel Prize.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Harlem Rhapsody
    by Victoria Christopher Murray

    The extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance.

  • Book Jacket

    Three Days in June
    by Anne Tyler

    A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Who Said...

A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas--a place ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

D to T N

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.