This is a very human story. If you are a fan of Leonard and Hungry Paul or of Fredrik Backman’s books, I think you’d enjoy this. However the characters aren’t quirky but really human, flawed and completely relatable. Set in a big store called Town Square (think Walmart), we are introduced to a cast of characters who work for the logistics team. Their struggles, their back stories, their interactions are all written with such humour and achingly deep compassion. Even the character I disliked, I still felt such empathy for her. One day, their store manager announces he is being promoted and transferred to another store. The team see this an opportunity to hatch a plan to see that certain promotions are secured. I can’t say more, you’ll have to read the book to find out if they are successful! I realise that my thoughts make the book seem light. And in many ways it is, but there are some really thought provoking moments. How store level employees are short changed by big corporations. How much of their humanity is stripped from them, running on this endless hamster wheel and barely making a liveable wage. Now there is this carrot, the hope for a promotion and how it could better their lives. It plays out brilliantly and the author did a beautiful job in giving every character a distinct voice. Incredibly believable! I laughed, my heart ached, I was moved. An ordinary story, about ordinary people written in an extraordinary way.

"Town Square still sought to be an employer of choice, and indeed, internal surveys conducted by HR found that the majority of its employees appreciated the efforts it made to acknowledge them. That was why they preferred Town Square to their second jobs, the ones they worked because Town Square didn't give them enough hours or pay them enough to live on." On the surface, this is a pretty simple story. A group of warehouse workers who scheme to get their awful manager promoted so they no longer have to deal with her every day. But Waldman writes so astutely about retail, big companies and the endless grind of low wage workers that frequently I had to put the book down and cheer a little. With a straightfoward plot, this is primarily a character-driven novel. Each of the warehouse workers has their own drama going on. The politics of shift work and the relationships that develop between a bunch of strangers working together is excellent, with even the worst characters written in a nuanced, believable way. The retail store is struggling and the workers face a constantly battle over staff shortages and unreliable hours. The town itself is emptying as the companies who built their businesses there have left, taking their stable and decent jobs with them. It's all so on point that it's not difficult to imagine Help Wanted being taught alongside Dickens. There's a chapter that describes how Amazon took over the traditional high street marker and the ramifications that I'm tempted to bookmark and hand out to customers who ask why we can't price match their website. It's a brilliant book for anyone who has ever worked a service or retail job, and a great critique of capitalism and the death of the high street. I enjoyed it greatly!

Taking aim at the ubiquitous online store which has made itself indispensable to so many consumers while never naming it, Help Wanted is set in the logistics section of a branch of Town Square, a department store, in a small New York town which has seen better days. Big Will, the store’s popular manager, has done the best he can in Pottersdown but is both thrilled and relieved when he’s promoted to run another branch. The staff are all agog, not least Meredith, the loathed manager of Movement, who is convinced Big Will’s job is her’s for the asking. Movement’s in turmoil at the prospect of Meredith’s promotion, horrified at the idea of her running the store but when Val hears that senior management plan to wrap up the appointment speedily, asking the logistics staff what they think of Meredith’s management style, she hits on a risky solution. Adelle Waldman’s empathetic novel engages our sympathy for the hard-pressed Movement staff on minimum wage with no benefits or medical insurance, exploring the consequences of twenty-first century consumerism and its appetite for ever cheaper goods in an entertaining and engaging way while smartly bringing its readers up short now and again.

Help Wanted is a brilliant critque of the treatment of working class America, particularly by corprate America. The store they work in is similar to Walmart, from what I can gather and this particular team work a night shift in the warehouse, unloading trucks and replenishing stock whilst the store is closed. They hate their line manager, Meredith, so much that when her boss transfers, they concoct a plan to get her promoted and out of their hair. The story provides several different viewpoints, although there is no first-person narration, but you get the perspectives of several key characters. The poverty some of them live in is devastating and you know there are millions of people living like this throughout the world. It's very sobering. There are some lighter moments too, and the bond the people have developed is lovely. The characters are, for the most part, great and you really root for them. My only complaint being that, as a massive Grey's fan, having the "baddie" of the cast be called Meredith was a bitter pill to swallow - ha ha! A very entertaining read and I'll definitely look out for more of her work.

"Help Wanted" by Adelle Waldman is both a book where very little happens yet so much happens too. The plot is seemingly simple: a vacancy opens up in a department store and 2 people are interviewed for the position. However, it is much more than this, it is about the employees who work at the department store, who can barely afford to work there but equally barely afford not to work there. Waldman paints a depressing picture of capitalist society in the online retail store and zero hours contract era. Yet there is hope, if a vacancy opens up then this leads to other opportunities for others to move up. Just like life!