Welcome to another book of the month on the very last day of the month! The book of this month is Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman. It’s a book about a group of employees working at a retail store in a small and declining town in upstate New York. The novel focuses on members of the Movement team, who resume at 3:55am every morning to unload trucks, stock shelves, and deal with an odd, self-conceited boss. Through the course of telling this story, we meet a cast of characters: from the ex-convict seeking redemption to the girl who’s holding on to the faded glory of being a “cool kid” in high school to the older lady who’s literally too old for this mess, among others. When a rare opportunity for a promotion presents itself, this divergent group of people must work together to engineer an outcome for their own goal(s). They do this through surmounting personal hurdles, navigate cliché and irritating corporate structures, and the frustration of low-wage work.
