Shipped

Shipped

By Angie Hockman

Between taking night classes for her MBA and her demanding day job at a cruise line, marketing manager Henley Evans barely has time for herself, let alone family, friends, or dating. But when she’s shortlisted for the promotion of her dreams, all her sacrifices finally seem worth it.

The only problem? Graeme Crawford-Collins, the remote social media manager and the bane of her existence, is also up for the position. Although they’ve never met in person, their epic email battles are the stuff of office legend.

Their boss tasks each of them with drafting a proposal on how to boost bookings in the Galápagos—best proposal wins the promotion. There’s just one catch: they have to go on a company cruise to the Galápagos Islands...together. But when the two meet on the ship, Henley is shocked to discover that the real Graeme is nothing like she imagined. As they explore the Islands together, she soon finds the line between loathing and liking thinner than a postcard.

With her career dreams in her sights and a growing attraction to the competition, Henley begins questioning her life choices. Because what’s the point of working all the time if you never actually live?

 

This is another of those workplace rom-coms where the prospective couple is vying for the same job, which always makes me a little nervous - there's gonna be some tricky maneuvering to make sure everyone gets their happy ending, and I didn't love that part of The Hating Game.  But I was persuaded because of the strong focus on the Galapagos, which was definitely the best part of the book.  

I liked it well enough, and it was a super fast read, so I finished the whole book one night after dinner, but  I never went back to re-read any parts, you know? It was cute, and amusing, but light.  Also, no explicit sex scenes, if you're curious.  Implicit!  

We get the entire book from Henley's perspective, which is for the best, since she comes off as more the "wronger" than the "wronged" in the initial (and subsequent) interactions with Graeme, especially once we get his side of the story.  From his perspective, I'm not entirely sure what her attraction would be.  

And I know that the whole plot of the book is about two people vying for the same job, but all that stuff with her boss and the big denouement was, eh, not that fun.  The cruise trip was much more entertaining, and I wish we'd had a week longer of that, and less time back at the office at the end.  Plus, three different men have taken credit for her projects in her work career? That's... majestically unlucky.  I also thought her and her sister's relationship was a little bit off.  She loves her, but thinks she's a failure, sure, okay, I'm on board, but then this whole plan of her sister's to get Graeme too distracted for the competition is just blown off like it's just another day in the Evans household and all is quickly forgiven.  And then we come out into a hard left when we find out her sister is being abused.  Jeez, it just kept getting weirder and weirder.  And a little 27 Dresses of it all.  

Anyway, it's fun, breezy, and light, and don't think too hard about it and you'll have a good time! And also desire to book a cruise asap.