Personal Days

Take this hilarious, biting satire to work and sneak a read whenever you need reassurance that offices everywhere are as crazy as yours. In "Personal Days," employees at a New York firm bicker and squabble over everything from who should take responsibility for a paper-jam to who has dibs on the "limited-edition Japanese Post-its." In between, they gossip, consume loads of coffee and cigarettes and, when they have time, actually squeeze in some work. Occasionally, they're rewarded with a "deprotion, which is a promotion that shares most of the hallmarks of a demotion." The Kafka-esque absurdities pile up. For instance, you never want gushing praise from the boss -- it's an unconscious sign, "like a poker player's tell," that the boss is mentally preparing himself or herself to give you the pink slip. And after all the laughs, writer Ed Park knows just when to get profound and touching on us. His book bursts with creativity -- at times too much of it. Indeed, if there's any complaint at all, it's that "Personal Days" is another of those books that plays with typesetting and fonts and gimmicks. The last section is a 50-page, one-sentence rant. On the plus side, you won't mind working overtime so you can finish reading it in one sitting.

This book was absolutely hilarious and kept me going page-by-page until the end. The characters were great, memorable, and the little inside jokes that developed through the book were endearing. For anyone who liked "e" or is currently watching The Office or loves Office Space, or into british humour in general, I think you'll really dig this short comedic masterpiece.

Personal Days is both funny and clever - it can be enjoyed for its hilarious and familiar observations of contemporary office life absurdities and appreciated for Ed Park's witty writing style. It's the perfect literary companion to Dilbert, The Office, and Office Space. The characters are sharply portrayed with satirical affection - reading the book was like starting a new job and meeting a new set of coworkers who could become one's friends or nemeses. The plot is gripping and culminates in something rare in many of today's novels - an ending that is both satisfying and leaves one guessing. I highly recommend Personal Days and look forward to more of Mr. Park's refreshing voice.

Personal Days is a funny and sardonic read, and while the laughs come quickly, at times somewhat painfully, in a good way, there is real intelligence to this book. The characters seem to be dashed off at first glance, but quickly you find that they feel real and complete, or at least as real and complete as any of the people in real life that we get to know in the same way: through quirky episodes and odd monikers and annoying or endearing tics. PD is a quick read, full of laughs, but take your time and you'll be rewarded. I don't write many reviews.

I LOVE this book. At first I was reading it very quickly because it is so g-damn funny and is so fun to read. Then I read slower and slower until I was only allowing myself to read a few pages at a time because I really didn't want it to end. Just a brilliant piece of work--and not only are the sentences so good (jokes within jokes within jokes) but also the structure of the book is exciting and the overall movement of the plot is extremely interesting. It moves from a very light, funny, almost sitcom-like environment gradually to a very bleak, strange, lonely place, where each secure part is torn away, piece by piece, and a single last character is left, alone, calling out into what can only seen as apocolyptic gloom. Wow. My kind of book.