'Critique of late-stage capitalism' is what really got me interested in this read. The premise had a lot of potential and at first I found the writing style really refreshing. However, I didn't end up falling in love with the book itself.

I found the main character Abernathy likeable at the start but on finishing the novel I ended up not liking him very much. I also feel like I'd missed something as It didn't exactly feel coherent to me. I'm sort of left wondering what actually happened?

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Oh dear, sorry not for me. A little too weird and I had to give up before finishing. Didn't really like the tone of the writing although the author certainly has a vivid imagination!

Unique and quirky, Jonathan is a character you'll laugh with, feel embarrassed for and grow to love.

Brilliant premise and original narrative. A thoroughly entertaining read.

Wild, imaginative and actually quite terrifying when you think about it. It’s an absolute trip.

Jonathan Abernathy is a young man, unemployed and saddled with debt. He is all alone in the world. He is desperate. He receives a job opportunity, a wonderful, important job which means he can stop skipping meals. All he has to do is audit the dreams of corporate Americans. He’s getting paid to sleep! Jonathan Abernathy is kind, Jonathan Abernathy is hopeful, Jonathan Abernathy is in over his head.

This book is utterly bonkers. And I mean that as a compliment. Firstly I love the narrator, usually I hate an omniscient narrator but this worked sooo well! I read the narrator in a Helen Mirren voice from Barbie. Without the narrator there is no way the satire could have been so well portrayed. It was genius. I went on a journey with Abernathy from thinking him naive, to ridiculous, to actually just a very scared human doing his best.

It’s a very jauntily told story with a very sinister plot. If told any other way it could easily have swayed into dystopia or horror but I love the route chosen. I thought it was so clever. It doesn’t prevent any tension being built or the story getting progressively more sinister and sad.

My only two problems with this story are:
1. I found the passing of time quite hard to follow BUT I accept that as the story progresses and Abernathy gets more immersed there is necessary chaos
2. There was too much inference and not enough explaining. I appreciate that the author thinks I’m smart but some parts of this book are so out there I wanted an explanation of what it meant.

This is a brilliant work of speculative fiction. It’s a really out there story and I admire the skill and the brain behind it.

This was a fascinating read! The comp to Severance is really accurate, as it has that dreamlike state and vibe. The start of the novel was funnier and then as it progresses it gets darker, which is a parallel to Abernathy's own status on the company.

I think that Molly McGhee probably had some kind of idea of what this book was meant to be about but it might leave a lot of readers rather confused.

I understand that Jonathan is a kind of loser, sinking with accumulated debt, no sense of direction and very low self-esteem. Then, he gets a job which is meant to be the worst job you can yet, entering the dreams of white-collar workers to vacuum up their nightmares and make them better workers for the mega-corporations which employ them. Anyway, it starts off well and then goes from bad to worse as it seems that the motives of dream auditing, as it is called, are a little more sinister.

He has a potential friend in Rhoda but his lack of self confidence and feelings of worthlessness strangle that probably beneficial relationship, and there is also some problem with Rhoda’s previous partner. However, for much of the book you don’t know if that is real or happening in dreams. In fact, the whole book is rather dreamlike or possibly bad trip like which is not a lot of fun even when it is meant to be comic.

There’s a bit of redemption at the end but even that seems rather half-hearted which, in some ways, is a fair way to sum up the book. You could call it quirky or you could wonder if it had an editor, because there is an interesting idea in there somewhere – like when you have a good idea in a dream but you can’t quite remember what it was when you wake up!

Severance meets Inception in this trippy page-turner. On the whole, I loved Abernathy and his musings, his total inefficiency at life itself. I felt invested in his journey and I liked the hidden narrator. I couldn’t quite give it five stars, as at some points in the novel, it all got so abstract I was a little lost. I also felt there were some threads of the story that were never quite explained to my satisfaction. But all in all, a fantastic debut and an enjoyable read.

I found this book so unique and am excited by the discovery of Molly McGhee. It’s about the workplace but also the future and the ethics of technology, all in a way that is clever and funny and so we’ll crafted. It reminded me a bit of a play I saw recently, about a young woman who works as a content moderator for a Facebook-like company, and I think this tiny little genre niche could be big in the coming years. Jonathan is a wonderful character, one you’ll root and cringe for in equal measure. I also appreciated the list of book workers McGhee credits in the acknowledgements - I hadn’t seen that before and thought it was lovely.