Book Review Jobs

I'm at a job interview at a major company. One of the interviewers is my father, Edgar Booker, whom I haven't seen in ten years. He wears a sharp suit and carries himself with an imposing presence. When he sweeps his indifferent gaze over me, he pauses for a rare moment. After the interview ends, the HR manager, Jesse Dorsey, pulls me aside. "You're Mr. Booker's son, right? He says you can start next week." I smile faintly and slowly tear up the offer letter. "No, thanks. I don't want to work with a murderer."

I walked into the Marxell Motors showroom with my girlfriend, Fleur Harper, and got straight to the point: I wanted to look at the SX. The salesman, Lenny Sloan, gave me a once-over, then acted like he hadn't heard a word. He pulled Fleur aside instead, all smiles. "You've got a great eye," he told her. "People are lining up just to put a deposit down on this one." I trailed along and cut in, frowning. "Can I take it for a test drive?" He didn't even look up. "This one's sixty-eight grand out the door. You sure you want to try it?" "I'm sure." He sighed like he was doing me a favor, then walked me around the car, dripping condescension the whole way. "A car to keep up appearances, sure, that's fine. Just don't get too full of yourself. It's seven hundred a month on the financing. You sure you can keep that up?" I kept my face flat and didn't answer. He leaned in and dropped his voice. "Real talk, man, what do you even do for work? Fresh out of school and already buying a luxury car?" I fired back with a question about the trim specs. He waved me off. "Not bad, you actually did your homework. But I already sent the details to your girl. Go hash it out with her." I swallowed my anger, finished negotiating the price, and put down the deposit. A week later, Fleur got a message: the dealership wanted her to come pick up the car. I called the dealership to ask what was going on. The man on the other end didn't bother hiding his contempt. "That deposit—who knows whose money that really was. You're wearing five-dollar canvas sneakers. No way you can afford an SX. Whoever's footing the bill gets the call to come pick it up. Problem?" No problem at all. After all, I was just a mystery shopper sent from corporate.

Every new job comes with trials. But of all of them, I never could have speculated my boss would end up being an alpha. Not the kind that commands a boardroom with his gaze alone, despite the fact he can do that too, but the kind that can't be beneath the shades of a full moon without shedding his human form into that of the supernatural creature. As desperate as I am for this job, I am not willing to put my life in the line for a paycheck to a shadow world beneath our own. However, he thinks independence away from him is the real danger. For it, I cannot escape the peril that certainly follows, along with my growing attraction to him.

My boss, Grant Conner, tells me that since the company has doubled its sales performance this year, he'll make sure to reward me nicely. I'm filled with anticipation, thinking that perhaps it's time he's giving me a raise. When everyone's having dinner at the year-end party, they are all discussing how much they'll get for the year-end bonus. "Allow me to toast to you, Shania!" Clare Randall, an intern who has joined the company for a month, shakily stands up to her feet while holding a full glass of red wine. Her cheeks were flushed. She was clearly drunk. "I feel so lucky, Shania! I'm just a fresh grad who doesn't know anything at all, and yet my boss has given me a six-thousand-dollar base salary! On top of that, I even get to learn from a wonderful mentor like you…" My hand trembles violently at Clare's words, almost resulting in me spilling juice all over the table. I've been working at this company for five years, and yet I've never received a raise before. But Clare's salary is twice my salary even though she's just joined!

The novel is mainly about the forgotten British poet/writer named C. J Richards who lived in Burma/Myanmar in colonial times and he believed himself as a Burmophile. He served as I.C.S (Indian Civil Servant) and when he retired from I.C.S service, he was a D.C (District Commissioner) and he left for England a year before Burma gained its independence in 1948. He came to Burma in 1920 to work in civil service after passing the hardest I.C.S examination. He wrote several books on Burma and contributed many monthly articles to Guardian Magazine published in Burma from 1953 to 1974 or 1975. Though he wrote several books which had much literary merit to both communities, Britain and Burma (Myanmar), people failed to recognize him. The story has two parts: one part is set in the contemporary Yangon (then called Rangoon) in 2016 context and a young literary enthusiast named “Lin” found out unexpectedly the forgotten writer’s poetry book and there is surely a good deal of time gap that led him into a quest to know more about the author’s life. The setting is quite different comparing to colonial Burma and independence Myanmar (Burma), early twentieth century and 2016 which is a transitional period in Myanmar. The writer’s life is fictionalized in the novel and most of the facts are taken from his personal stories and other reference books. It is a kind of historical novel with a twist and it has comparatively constructed the two different periods in Myanmar history to convince readers, locally and abroad more about history, authorship, humanity, colonialism, and transitional development in Myanmar today.

After three grueling years of studying, I finally made it into the city agency. Then at a family banquet, I found out that my cousin, Gina Forrest—the one I'd seen at a hometown reunion—had also landed a job in the exact same unit. During the family dinner, right in front of our uncle, who happens to be a senior official, my cousin shoved a doctored confidential document into my hands. She suddenly shrieked, collapsed to the floor, and scattered the papers everywhere. "Clara! That's classified agency material! How could you sneak it out to show an outsider? Just for some lousy commission?" Our uncle slammed the table in rage, declaring he would uphold justice over family ties—have me fired on the spot and report me up the chain. Then, right in front of me, a line of on-screen text floated by. [Gina has really lost her mind. Doesn't she know the main character is the undercover inspection team leader sent specifically to investigate her?] [And look at the uncle still putting on his act. The team's car will be pulling up outside any minute.] Reading the on-screen text, I took a slow sip of tea and said to Gina, who was falling all over herself to prove her loyalty, "This document is classified, all right. But you changed the wrong part." Then I turned to my uncle and said, "And you just said you would uphold justice over family ties? Perfect. You can come back with me to the team and explain all those hiring violations over the past few years." Gina was stunned. The government system she had been killing herself to get into—I was the one in charge of evaluating her.