There is one thing that we are promised in life if you live long enough to be employed -- a boss you loathe. Dennis is the uber awful boss. He uses humiliation and intimidation as his sole management skill set. He insists on absolute fidelity to incomprehensible rules. And excruciatingly, his personality drips with the poison of equal-opportunity hatred. He despises them all.

Mervyn, is the employee we all wish we could have been. He despises Dennis so much that he doesn't even try to hide it. His rudeness backfires though and convinces Dennis that Mervyn's overtures to his coworkers is an elaborate ruse to hide his own spit-flecked, rabid tirades. Mervyn's new colleagues greet him with frigid distance. He is so hopelessly unqualified for the job of video game software tester that the other employees, most of whom have slaved in hellish conditions just for the opportunity to test games, resent.

Eventually the coworkers warm a bit after Mervyn befriends one of the employees particularly repugnant to the hated boss.The relationship with his boss remains complicated. Mervyn repeatedly expresses contempt to his hypochondriac, panphobic boss and yet Dennis continues to play paramour to his imagined protege.

In the real world i.e. not the office, Mervyn is a frustrated author and pushes himself mercilessly to complete his third unpublished and likely unread novel. The software testing is just a day job. However the continued harassment from his boss pushes enough buttons that a final showdown with Dennis becomes an attractive option.Through a complicated series of events Mervyn finds himself living with the literal contents of a bar. A party is the obvious solution to his problems with his caricature of a boss, his desired love interest and his much-needed floorspace.

The party includes Dennis' boss who enlivens all gatherings with white powdered mountains dumped on the nearest mirror. Yes, this party sports a commercial enterprise of free booze a pharmacy's worth Columbia and Afghanistan's finest and a hate spewing boss whose taste in music would bore a Lawrence Welk audience.

The "you-can't-make-this-stuff-up" feeling in the novel continues. Honest, I haven't revealed anything that will make the book feel like an also-read.

I realize that a book with all this happening can sound like a joke setup at macro length. In order to get some perspective I took several days after finishing the book to write this review to see if my opinion changed. It hasn't. It was fun and funny and oddly heartwarming. I know, I can't believe it either.


I received a free copy of this book from ReviewSt in return for an honest review. ( )

It was a giveaway win from LibraryThing. Liked it but not loved it. Saw some critique that the 'brit terms' were confusing. I am sure some other book lovers would like it. ( )

This story is not for me. It is way over the top. The language is difficult to understand. The characters didn't appeal to me. The story didn't seem to make sense either. I found to read it I needed to constantly go online to understand some phrases like Steadman and Scarfe??? This book is not for me anyway. ( )

Kindle Unlimited, but giveaway win from LibraryThing. Liked it but not loved it. Saw some critique that the 'brit terms' were confusing, which I didn't think so, just didn't luv the book but definitely liked it. ( )

This book kept me interested and it was a fast read. Not my usual type of book, but I am glad I read it. I liked the way everything came together in the end. ( )