Review of Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

Help Wanted is character heavy and plot light.  The story takes place in a target-like store called Town Square located in small-town upstate New York.  The main characters are Town Square’s warehouse workers, the warehouse supervisor, the assistant manager over the warehouse, and the store manager.

Bill Will is the store manager and a “good guy.”  However, he just got a transfer to a Town Square located near his hometown and will be leaving New York soon.  As such, the store manager position is up for grabs.  Meredith, the assistant manager over the warehouse, is terrible at her job, and her subordinates hate her.  Nevertheless, the warehouse crew comes up with a scheme to get Meredith promoted to store manager just so she’ll be out of their faces on a daily basis.  Everyone expects Little Will, the warehouse supervisor, would then get Meredith’s old job, thus opening up his job for one of the warehouse crew.  Yet, there isn’t much conflict in the book.  The warehouse crew work together to get Meredith promoted, but there isn’t much individual scheming for Little Will’s job.  The obvious question the book presents is do the rank-and-file have what it takes to achieve their goal as a team.  You’ll have to read the book to find out.

Let me just say that, to me, Help Wanted is mostly commentary on the corporate hierarchy that keeps the rank-and-file in their places at the bottom of the corporate ladder.  Those in authority have all the power and look down their snotty noses at their subordinates.  Nothing exciting happens in Help Wanted.  We all know how a store like Town Square treats its employees.  This book simply puts it on the page as a work of fiction.  The good thing about that, though, is Help Wanted portrays the corporate higher-ups as the douche bags they are.

Personally, I read fiction to escape reality.  For me, Help Wanted wasn’t a fun read.  I also had difficulty because the point of view kept shifting in the middle of scenes.  I think it would’ve been a smoother read if the author had limited the point of view to three or four characters at the most and stayed with one point of view throughout an entire scene.