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A review by gailalison
Hot Desk by Zara Stoneley
3.0
2.5 stars- This book was okay. It took me some time to get into it as the writing towards the beginning wasn’t great. It was overly conversational, in a bad way. It was more interesting in the middle, but then took a weird turn for the last third or so. There were several little things that didn’t make sense to me:
-There is a point towards the middle where Alice orders noise-canceling headphones, but it has mentioned earlier in the story that she already had some
-Everyone who sends texts in this book signs their texts at the end with their names (or initial). Who does that?
-At the hot desks, there is a pc that both people share, but also they use laptops so they can work from home? This doesn’t make sense to me
-Alice says when working from home in her bedroom, she was worried about showing her unmade bed and clothes on the floor. Why wouldn’t she 1. Clean up before going on Zoom and/or 2. Use one of the fake backgrounds so no one can even see her room?
-Alice is a website designer, but says she makes very little money. I thought website designers got paid pretty well (or is that just a misconception?)
- Also, Alice seems to work with her clients extremely independently. Are there not managers or supervisors that review new clients’ websites before they see them?
+When Jamie emails Alice for the first time, he said he hadn’t been in the office Friday morning, but Alice said the note she left him the day before was gone? Huh?
-There we’re basically no physical descriptions for any characters. Was this intentional?
-The main character/author uses the term “housework slut”, in a way that makes no sense.
-Alice occasionally, randomly says the word “sugar”, seemingly as a substitute for expletives, but also uses expletives. It’s weird.
-The ending is strangely abrupt. I felt like I was missing an actual ending.
Overall, this book had potential, but ended up being just okay.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for providing me access to this eARC for my honest opinion!
-There is a point towards the middle where Alice orders noise-canceling headphones, but it has mentioned earlier in the story that she already had some
-Everyone who sends texts in this book signs their texts at the end with their names (or initial). Who does that?
-At the hot desks, there is a pc that both people share, but also they use laptops so they can work from home? This doesn’t make sense to me
-Alice says when working from home in her bedroom, she was worried about showing her unmade bed and clothes on the floor. Why wouldn’t she 1. Clean up before going on Zoom and/or 2. Use one of the fake backgrounds so no one can even see her room?
-Alice is a website designer, but says she makes very little money. I thought website designers got paid pretty well (or is that just a misconception?)
- Also, Alice seems to work with her clients extremely independently. Are there not managers or supervisors that review new clients’ websites before they see them?
+When Jamie emails Alice for the first time, he said he hadn’t been in the office Friday morning, but Alice said the note she left him the day before was gone? Huh?
-There we’re basically no physical descriptions for any characters. Was this intentional?
-The main character/author uses the term “housework slut”, in a way that makes no sense.
-Alice occasionally, randomly says the word “sugar”, seemingly as a substitute for expletives, but also uses expletives. It’s weird.
-The ending is strangely abrupt. I felt like I was missing an actual ending.
Overall, this book had potential, but ended up being just okay.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for providing me access to this eARC for my honest opinion!