Work Nights
It sells this novel short to say it’s about a love triangle. What endeared me most to this story was not the messy, queer love triangle, but how the mess fit into the frank and eerily familiar depiction of what it means to be a corporate, millennial woman ... Through Jane, Peplin captures the cognitive dissonance of professional women.
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Slice-of-life stories with characters trapped in listless lives are easy to come by, but the touch that makes Erica Peplin’s debut novel, Work Nights, stand out is that she never lets her story run on cynicism alone. There’s not just depth, but true yearning in Work Nights, not to mention Peplin’s knack for character, incisive wit and narrative economy, and that makes it a welcome story from an endearing new contemporary voice ... There are certainly familiar elements at work here, but Work Nights is set apart by the power of Peplin’s voice. Through Jane’s eyes, we see a world of 21st-century generational struggles—wealth inequality, the soul-draining effects of capitalism, the feeling that everything must be part of some hustle or another—filtered through humor and genuine heart. Jane’s not over everything, but neither is she earnest to the point of being cringeworthy. She’s just trying to get through the day, and Peplin approaches that perspective with wisdom and cutting insights to spare, finding countless ways to convey a world gone just mad enough for us to notice, but not mad enough to fall apart .... Work Nights is not the next The Devil Wears Prada, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a singular effort by a bright new voice in fiction, and that’s more than enough to keep the pages turning.
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Witty and emotionally raw ... Peplin keeps readers rooting for Jane to find love, but more indelible than the romance plot is the depiction of the bond between Jane and her colleagues, who call themselves the Stepford Planners and dish about their cutthroat office ... Devotees of The Devil Wears Prada will find much to love.
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