I Hope This Finds You Well
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To whom it may concern,
I was very skeptical of this book at first, wasn’t a fan of the main character at the beginning, but she grows on you. “I Hope This Finds You Well” by Natalie Sue made me giggle, tear up, and just feel good. Let’s get into it.
Quick synopsis: 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? Be invisible.
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.
But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworkers' private worlds and realizes they are each keeping secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around the new HR guy, Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Eventually she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if that means coming clean to her colleagues.
Non-spoiler review:
This is such a fun, sad story that makes you giggle a little bit. I wouldn’t say, “laugh out loud hilarious” like some reviewer named Anne said…but it was funny. When we first meet Jolene she describes her living situation as a constant overflow of empty alcohol bottles and the never ending pile of laundry. She spends about 99% of her time at work just trying to get by with as little attention as possible. She’s very depressed without coming right out and saying it.
One of the problems I had with Jolene in the beginning was that she was just kind of rude to her coworkers. You can tell she doesn’t like them. At. All. To air out any grievances she had, she would write how she really felt about any situation at the bottom of an email and change the font color to white so they will never know. Pretty genius, until it wasn’t. She forgot to change the color to white one time, and she was reported to HR. Oops.
The IT fix on her computer was supposed to allow HR to track her emails and chats, to make sure she’s not being mean to anyone any more. But instead of tracking her, she can now see literally everyone’s emails and chats. This is both a curse and a blessing.
Throughout the story I liked how we were able to pull back the curtain on her coworkers lives. We are all told that everyone is fighting a battle that you just don’t know about, so treat everyone with kindness. Well in Jolene’s case, everyone was talking shit about her, so she wanted revenge.
BEWARE: Spoilers ahead:
After she was caught writing that nasty email, she was told she had to complete harassment training sessions with HR for the next month. If she didn’t pass, she could be fired. This meant spending more time with the new HR guy, Cliff.
He seems like a sweet guy who genuinely wants to help people. Kind of the opposite of Jolene, who doesn’t seem to care about anyone but herself.
When Cliff finds out she lives pretty close to him, he offers to give her rides to and from work so she doesn’t have to take the bus anymore. During these car rides they start to become friends and Jolene starts to catch feelings. Something she doesn’t want to do.
Over the next few weeks, Jolene is learning about her coworkers lives a lot more. She learns that one of them has a son who refuses to talk to her, another one is lying to his really strict parents about how successful he is, and the other one is hiding her abusive relationship. Jolene starts to feel for each of them. She actually starts trying at work and makes a big difference. She’s getting noticed in a good way and it makes her feel good.
On the other hand, she is still battling with what happened when she was in high school. During her senior year, her and her best friend were out at a party. Drinking, dancing, flirting. All the high school girl things. But her friend wanted to leave and just walked off. When Jolene realized she was gone, it was too late. Her friend had drowned in a nearby lake. The rest of high school was absolutely terrible for her. Everyone was blaming Jolene for what happened, saying that no one should be friends with her or they will end up dead too.
Throughout her adult life, Jolene has never really faced these demons of hers and moved on. She only really started to feel better when she was getting closer to Cliff and finding her purpose at work.
When her boss finally realizes that she has been able to read everyone’s emails and chats, he fires her. It wasn’t Jolene’s fault, but it was her fault she didn’t tell someone about it right away. This is what Jolene needed. She needed something to kick her in the butt to get her life moving forward into a more positive direction. Life is not all about work.
Her relationship with Cliff does fall apart for a little bit, but they can’t deny their real feelings. Jolene and Cliff have a really good conversation about where they are in their lives and decide to essentially start over. It was really cute. I ended up liking how opposite they were. Cliff makes Jolene kinder. Jolene brings out the bite in Cliff.
This story hit home for me in a few areas that made me really like it. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this book so much, but if you are feeling lost at work, or in your own life, I highly recommend this story.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 Stars