The cover of “I Hope This Finds You Well” leads one to believe that it’s a cute, clever, humorous novel about working in an office, in a cubicle, and the things that one might resort to to keep one’s job. Instead, I was surprised and delighted to find that Natalie Sue’s debut novel grabbed me and dragged me into the life of Jolene so completely that I kept reading until late in the night to find out more about Jolene and her journey working as a cog at a huge conglomerate, Supershops, Inc.

What Sue does so well is to make Jolene a really likable, relatable person, even if you don’t really relate to her problem drinking, her lack of ambition, and her inability to relate to her coworkers at all. She ignores messages from her mother, lives in a decrepit apartment that is a mess, drinks way too much, and exerts minimal effort in her job; the only way she can make it through the day is to write really snarky comments at the end of emails to coworkers. She changes to a white font so they can’t be seen. It makes her feel better.

Until the day that she forgets to change the font to white, when she is caught. She is written up by the new HR person, Cliff, and made to undergo a series of sessions to help her understand how to better work with her fellow employees. Cliff also makes adjustments to her computer so that her emails are monitored. What he doesn’t realize is that he inadvertently gave Jolene access to all employee messages and emails. When Jolene realizes what she has, she is determined to use that access to keep her job even though she definitely knows what she is doing is wrong, really wrong.

What she discovers is that Supershops is getting ready to lay off workers. Jolene needs her job so she can keep her miserable apartment and not move back home with her very loving but kind of overbearing Persian parents. Jolene decides to use the information in the emails to make her fellow employees like her, and also to make sure that when the layoffs come, she will not be one of the victims. She will use her accidental access to keep her own job secure.

But what Jolene comes to understand is that once you know what is behind the facade we all present to the world, it’s hard to keep disliking others quite as much as she had done for so many years. Without realizing it, Jolene becomes friends with others and starts to care about what happens to them, and in doing so, she begins to understand what she needs to get on with the life that she deserves.

There is so much that is well done in this novel. Sue creates a catastrophic incident in Jolene’s teenage past that still, even in her thirties, haunts her. That tragedy has colored Jolene’s life, and not in pretty pastel shades but rather in dark grays and bleak fog that, at times, threatens Jolene’s very existence. But having friends, even just one good friend, can be a great start to not just getting through life, but enjoying it. There’s also plenty of humor, but the emotion and the connections we make with Jolene, and even some of the other office workers, is what draws us into the lives of the workers at this one small office of this fictional conglomerate. We care and we are rooting for them, and especially for the vulnerable but prickly Jolene. This lovely, touching, and clever book is Natalie Sue’s first published novel, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.