“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book’s about and what I thought.
Synopsis:
(via Goodreads)
Paxton never thought he’d be working for Cloud, the giant tech company that’s eaten much of the American economy. Much less that he’d be moving into one of the company’s sprawling live-work facilities.
But compared to what’s left outside, Cloud’s bland chainstore life of gleaming entertainment halls, open-plan offices, and vast warehouses…well, it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s more than anyone else is offering.
Zinnia never thought she’d be infiltrating Cloud. But now she’s undercover, inside the walls, risking it all to ferret out the company’s darkest secrets. And Paxton, with his ordinary little hopes and fears? He just might make the perfect pawn. If she can bear to sacrifice him.
As the truth about Cloud unfolds, Zinnia must gamble everything on a desperate scheme—one that risks both their lives, even as it forces Paxton to question everything about the world he’s so carefully assembled here.
Together, they’ll learn just how far the company will go…to make the world a better place.
Set in the confines of a corporate panopticon that’s at once brilliantly imagined and terrifyingly real, The Warehouse is a near-future thriller about what happens when Big Brother meets Big Business–and who will pay the ultimate price.
My Thoughts:
Hmm. The synopsis gives the impression that this is a much darker read than it really is. I experienced The Warehouse as a more of a satire than a thriller, for the most part. In The Warehouse, Cloud is everything, and has basically taken over much of what we might consider normal life, including privatizing government agencies such as the FAA and creating their own energy sources. No matter what you want, Cloud can provide, and Cloud seems to be the only source of steady employment left in the US — providing not only a paycheck, but also housing, access to material goods, and even to rare commodities such as hamburgers.
Of course, there’s a price, like a total lack of privacy, having every move tracked, having performance rated in real-time, and having no say over work assignments — not to mention an economic set-up that’s like a throw-back to the days when workers owed their souls to the company store.
We get to know Cloud through the experiences of Paxton and Zinnia, two new employees learning the ropes, each with their own agenda, as well as through the blog entries of Gibson Wells, Cloud’s multi-billionaire founder and CEO, now ailing and attempting to create a record of his legacy before his death.
The plot moves along quickly, but I didn’t altogether connect with the book as a whole. I wasn’t particularly interested in Paxton or Zinnia as individuals, and while the inner workings of Cloud were interesting and disturbing, the book’s uneven tone (is it dark? is it dark humor? is it a thriller?) left me mostly unengaged. I should probably mention that a particular reveal made me want to hurl… but hey, maybe you have a stronger stomach than I do!
Overall, The Warehouse is an entertaining read, but without the solid impact I’d been expecting.
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The details:
Title: The Warehouse
Author: Rob Hart
Publisher: Crown
Publication date: August 20, 2019
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Bookshelf Fantasies 
I definitely found this to be much lighter and funnier in tone than I was expecting. I had fun with it too, although I had a lot of unanswered questions at the end.
Yes… I thought the end kind of petered out a bit. A fun read, but not life changing!
I’ve been seeing The Warehouse all over the blog world. I also had the impression that it was a darker story. Glad it was entertaining – thanks for reviewing!
My pleasure 🙂 It was certainly different than what I expected!