of Then We Came to the End (Joshua Harris).
I'm hoping to have some additional conclusions after next week's book club - we actually have a discussion guide this time! - but my initial conclusion is just puzzled at my own weirdness about the emotional progression of the story. Midway through this past weekend, I found myself depressed by listening to the characters and their daily struggles. Their never-ending attempts to find value in what they do for 8-14 hours every day are all to real for me to laugh at. Their silly-from-the outside rage at others within the environment who seem to exist with the singular purpose of making "our" life miserable and the repetitive focus on the things-that-shouldn't-matter remind me of my own personal daily grind and my continuing inability to escape from my own manufactured life.
Sure, maybe that's a bit deep, but what does it say about me that the bits about the office politics and the after-lunch depression reach me more directly than the near-tragedies and true-tragedies revealed at the close of the story that impact "us" in the dawn of the 21st Century? I guess you could just say that the every day struggles are more real to a relatively priviledged corporate-type like myself. Or perhaps I just need a little shaking up from a disgruntled former coworker??
