Review: She's the Boss

A couple of years ago I read Lisa Lim's debut novel Confessions of a Call Center Gal (the review can be found here) and enjoyed it. When Lisa asked me to review the sequel, She's the Boss, I immediately said yes. As I suspected I was constantly giggling and that really helped me enjoy the novel.

Here's the synopsis:

The Devil Wears Prada meets The Office. Twenty-something Karsynn is now a boss but she's not so much The Devil Wears Prada as she is The Angel Wears Payless. With a brighter career, things should be going better for Karsynn, right? Wrong. There's now a new director at the office--Carter Lockwood, and he's brought his reputation for wrecking havoc amongst the ladies. Karsynn prides herself in being the only one impervious to Carter's good looks. In fact, she takes great pleasure in blowing on the embers of Carter's hostility.
Karsynn thinks Carter is arrogant and obnoxious. Carter thinks Karsynn is an ignorant, sassy spitfire. But when they start working closely together, they discover that first impressions can be deceptive. Karsynn may be winning the battle against Carter, but will she lose the war? And more importantly, will she lose her heart?

One of the things that  kind of stuck out for me was that I thought the book actually needed more build up to the romance - it was sort of a surprise when Karsynn realized she liked Carter. (Romance actually seems like a bad word choice as neither Kars nor Carter are particularly romantic!) I know that seems silly because everyone always wishes there was more of a surprise factor when the heroine and hero get together. In this case I was just struggling to understand how their feelings changed. Does that make sense? By the end I could tell that they were going to work well together so that helped reconcile whatever odd feelings I had about the whole situation.

Like I said, this book was funny. Karsynn manages to get herself into some hilarious situations that were a lot of fun to read about. Unfortunately, I didn't make good notes while reading this book so I don't have any specifics. One part that sticks out, and I've actually referenced recently, is when Kars is told that her team needs to cut down on the swearing while working. Her response? To tell her team to replace curse words with a place on the map. Trust me, hilarity ensues.

I also just have to share this:

A snippet from my review of Confessions of a Call Centre Gal made it into this book! Whee!

If you like an offbeat sense of humour, pop culture references, and entertaining stories, give She's the Boss a read. (Though I'd suggest reading Confessions of a Call Center Gal first!) Lisa Lim delivers a great story with crazy characters that you'll find yourself wanting to party with.

Happy reading :)