“And I realize that he’s been looking straight into my eyes through this whole conversation, and normally that would make me feel uncomfortable, but I forgot to be insecure. Maybe things are easier with him because I know what the point of this friendship is. Maybe it’s easy because I know it will be over soon anyway.”
I Hope This Finds You Well is a clever romance about finding yourself.
As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text colour to white so no one can see. That is, until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.
When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favour, convince HR she’s Supershops material and beat out the competition.
But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworker’s private worlds and secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Soon she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if it means coming clean to her colleagues.
This one was a bit of a miss for me. I was excited to read it because I thought the premise was great. But it just didn’t live up to it unfortunately. For me the major issue was the main character Jolene. I just didn’t like her. And I get that we’re not supposed to, and that we watch her grow as a person throughout the book, but it just didn’t happen fast enough to draw me in and make me want to cheer for her.
Now that being said, there are plenty of positive things to say about this book so I’ll focus on those for the rest of the review. One character I did love was Cliff, the HR guy. He is just so sweet and nerdy and his desire to help people really shone from the pages. I absolutely loved the witty banter between him and Jolene. There were a lot of good lines that had me laughing. And I liked them together. He really did bring out the best of Jolene.
As far as a romance, I wouldn’t say the romance element is front and centre. The book is more about Jolene and her development with a bonus subplot of romance. It’s a slow burn for Cliff and Jolene; they can’t actually date because they work together. But their chemistry is awesome and the banter, as I said, is a joy to read. This is a clean romance, there are no on page sexy times.
Another thing I liked here was the underlying commentary about work relationships. How we spend so much of our time with these folks but in a lot of cases, don’t really get to know them at all. I liked how Natalie wove stories of the secondary characters into the narrative like Rhonda and Armin and we got to know more about them and who they are outside of Supershops, Inc.
Overall, not my favourite, but if you like strong character development with a big redemption arc, give this one a try.
Thank you, William Morrow for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
