Review: The Office Idiot Reviews
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 02 17, 2014
The Office Idiot Reviews is the second in the Idiot Reviews series by Pete Sortwell in which the entire story is built using Amazon product reviews.  As with the first book in the series, the Village Idiot Reviews, Sortwell deserves credit for the creativity and research that went into determining all of the various "products" that would be reviewed by his characters in a way that connect together to tell an overall story.  That said, this book falls short of the original in the series in a couple of ways.  First, much like the original, the humor isn't going to work for everyone as much of it often tends to be a bit sophomoric with a decidedly British slant (almost in a Mr. Bean fashion in some cases).  While there was a great deal of the juvenile humor in the first book, there were glimpses of more smart humor as well that are decidedly absent from this work.  Secondly, whereas the Village Idiot Reviews produced several memorable characters that developed throughout the story, the Office Idiot Reviews had more one-dimensional characters who failed to stick out.  To be honest, it was a bit difficult to keep track of several of who several of them were and what their backgrounds were and how they related to the others.  Further, there was a lack of consistency with some of the characterizations.  For example, Jeff (cousin of Brian from the original book) is a very strange individual who only eats bananas and listens to two walkmans simultaneously with a continuous loop of two different bands.  He seems strikingly simple and odd throughout the majority of the book, but at some point develops an unexpected cleverness that results in him pulling a prank on the rest of the staff; but, this momentary cleverness is never really followed up with and just seems to stick out in an odd way compared to the rest of his story.  Overall, the concept is a creative one, but unfortunately, this time it doesn't quite work as well as with the initial book in the series.