This book reads like a good friend telling you war stories from their job over a drink or five. I had a bad boss once, so any time I can swap battle scars with someone, I’m game. But Emily wins the horrible boss competition, hands down. Rune is abusive to the max, thinks he’s the center of the world, and thinks the world owes him a favor just for being in his presence. (My boss was this way too, but not this extreme.) His “friends” and girlfriend are just as self-obsessed and rude. Emily is basically a slave, paid to do the most menial and humiliating of tasks deemed beneath Rune and his contingency.
I think her year with Rune and the aftermath that followed while she picked up the pieces and re-configured her life is well-told. A few critiques, if I can (and who’s going to stop me! Ha!): the people she mentions, other than Rune, are relatively flat characters. I am unable to keep them straight. I even forgot about Tilda until she reappeared for the wedding from hell. Felix, Sandstone, Ben, Large Larry … I’m sure they were integral to the tapestry of what was going on with Click! in Emily’s head, but it doesn’t translate well on the page. If I were having a drink with her, I’d have to keep interrupting and asking, “Who? Now which one was he?” Toward the end, after she left Click!, there was a point where she references all new people and I thought, “Nope, not even going to bother trying to keep track of these people if they’re just bit players in her story.”
There were some details of the story I felt were unnecessary, and I skimmed through these. Some of the restaurant scenes, or the music at the clubs, come to mind. Great fodder for a travel journal, but not for a memoir.
I did enjoy reading about when she met Dmitri. The attraction just dripped off the page. And I like how she ended on a positive note. Figuring out before she hit the age of 30 that she wanted to do more with her life, and striving toward finding purpose, is something that many who are much older are still struggling to find. I commend her for that.