Erica was getting a haircut in Lincoln Square, so I did the requisite Gene's Sausage Shop shopping and then wandered into the Book Cellar. Right at the front they had a stack of Joe Meno's latest, Office Girl, with a "Autographed Copy" sticker on them. Well, I thought, even if it sucks, at least I'll have a signed copy, so I bought it and sat down with a cup of coffee. When Erica called to say she was done with her haircut, I was a third of the way through the book. We went home and I read the rest in one long session on the couch. Well, wait, that's not strictly true, because as I approached the end of the book I kept taking breaks because I knew that once I finished I wasn't going to be reading the book anymore and I wanted to put off that moment. Do you know what I mean?
The book is set in Chicago in the winter of 1999 and follows a young man and a young woman, who we meet separately and then together as they begin to go out. Both are former art school students (graduate and drop-out, respectively) now working terrible office jobs.
I moved to Chicago in 1999, so that winter was my first winter here, but the book didn't resonate with me necessarily because that was my life or anything--I was 30 by the time I moved here, with a computer science degree and a pretty good job. It's just a really good book, about like people and a bit about art, and about just making decisions and stuff.
FuzzyCo grade: A+
