Left anonymously on the Book Exchange shelf.

This book is available on the Book Exchange shelf in the pantry in room 9C68 of the Knox Building (USPTO employees and authorized visitors only - this area is not open to the general public).

I'm taking this from the book exchange shelf at work to send to another BCer who has it on her wishlist.

Mailing off to GoryDetails as part of the Wishlist Tag Game.

The book arrived safely today; thanks so much! I really enjoyed Rowell's meta-fiction Carry On, and wanted to read more of her work.

Interesting twist on the "meet cute" concept, with a modern-day high-tech twist: new IT security-guy Lincoln finds himself on the late shift reading any emails that get flagged by the company's security software. The bit about the security flag-words is funny:

"There was a whole list of red flags: nasty words, racial slurs, supervisors' names, words like 'secret' and 'classified'. That last one, 'classified,' beached the entire network during WebFence's first hour by flagging and storing each and every e-mail sent to or from the Classified Advertising department."

Having worked in computers for my entire adult life, I've seen examples of such... oblivious use of software, and that bit made me laugh out loud.

Given the wide range of flags - and the fact that the software's supposed to flag "personal conversations" too - it wasn't surprising that Lincoln found himself reading some very personal mail-threads indeed, most notably between employees Beth and Jennifer. Their mail threads featured extensive and detailed chats about whether or not Jennifer's pregnant, about the parties they've each been to, about personal health matters, and of course about which guys they think are attractive - and Lincoln, instead of simply sending them the usual warning about appropriate use of the company email, decides to eavesdrop. (Eavesread?) [Well, actually he DID send a warning - it's not as if the women aren't aware that the emails are monitored. But they didn't take the warning seriously and just Keep. On. Chatting.]

Over time, Lincoln falls for Beth, and a variety of sit-com-style incidents ensue, some quite amusing, others more (to me, anyway) cringe-inducing. (While I was certainly not above using company internet for fun at times - we had in-house message boards and whatnot - I wouldn't have dreamed of using company emails for the level of personal talk that these characters do. Heck, I wouldn't talk about most of that even with my closest friends or family, even in person and in private! So for me the whole setup felt a bit off, and I found it hard to really empathize with the protagonists in that regard.)

That said, there were some amusing and even charming bits here and there, and if I found the final resolution of the will-they-won't-they plot a bit... cheesy?... I suppose there's room for that in a romantic comedy!

I'm adding this book to the Already Been Crossed bookbox, which will be on its way to its next stop soon. Enjoy!

*** Released for the 2019 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***

I took this from kaila-ann's Already Been Crossed Book Box.

This was part cute, part creepy. I'm a fan of epistolary novels, but wasn't sure how the email exchange would work. That was the best part of the book!

This book is off to find a new reader as a wishlist book from the tag game! I hope you enjoy!

Arrived in the mail sometime in the past week (we just got new mailboxes in our community! so we were shut down for a week :-)

Thank you so much! I really enjoyed FanGirl so I have hopes this one is as fun.