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Book Summary and Reviews of The Cleaner by Brandi Wells

The Cleaner by Brandi Wells

The Cleaner

A Novel

by Brandi Wells

  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • Readers' Rating (26):
  • Published:
  • Jan 2024, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The night cleaner comes and does what she does best—sorts out the messes of the daytime employees. None of them know her, but she knows everything about them. Disturbing and funny in equal measures.

Every night, she cleans. On the fourth floor of an unnamed office in an unnamed city, the night cleaner comes and does what she does best—sorts out the messes of the daytime employees. None of them know her, but she knows everything about them: Sad Intern's dreams to get promoted, Résumé Woman's nasty flight-risk behavior, Mr. Buff's secret smoking habit (not very conducive to his fitness journey).

She's the office mastermind, the one everyone needs, and no one even knows she exists. And tonight, while scrolling through your emails, she'll discover the secret you've been hiding—the one that will put everyone's job at risk.

After all, protecting the employees is her responsibility: whether it's from rats and window smudges or from the sinister CEO who may be driving the company into ruin. And you're about to find out that, sometimes, your most powerful enemy is the one you don't even see.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Wells is a keen observer of the mundane indignities and petty dramas of office life. Rarely has cubicle culture been depicted in such griminess or with such glee." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"So inappropriately fun to read." —Booklist (starred review)

"Reminiscent of Ottessa Moshfegh's work in its excavations of a troubled woman's descent into more and more uncomfortable behavior, this novel is a suspenseful, though slow-paced, examination of one woman's delusion. This gripping, sometimes shocking novel relies on quiet twists to keep the reader guessing." —Kirkus Reviews

"Welcome to the office building at night, an eerie ship helmed by one woman desperate for connection." —Julia Fine, author of Maddalena and the Dark

This information about The Cleaner was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Brandi Wells

Brandi Wells is the author of This Boring Apocalypse, Please Don't Be Upset, and Poisonhorse. Their debut novel, Cleaner, was published by Wildfire Books in August 2023 and will be published by Hanover Square Press in January 2024 as The Cleaner.

They teach creative writing at CSU Fullerton and hold a Phd in Literature and Creative Writing from University of Southern California.

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