The No Hellos Diet
"The No Hellos Dietby Sam Pink backs in to weirdness in much the same way as the early novels of Chuck Palahnuik. Life lived on the sketchy edges of society has an innate weirdness brought on by poverty, social exclusion and mental illness. Pink is a keen observer of the culture of minimum-wage jobs and low-rent  studio apartments that is the reality of life for all those who don't find a cog space in today's hyper-capitalist economy.The No Hellos Dietis  the story of a shop clerk with no dreams or aspirations, told in the second person because, frankly, this is your life we're talking about here." -THE GUARDIAN"No matter what he's writing, Pink's eye for describing the bizarre daily  parade of being a person surrounded by other people and with a brain that won't turn off is by turns hilarious, self-destructive, surreal, precise, and moving without trying to be moving." -VICE       "Pink's got to have a bit of genius in him to take something as mind-numbing as a job stocking shelves and turn it into a side street billboard showcasing the internal struggle of the awkward and antisocial. Using the slightly uncomfortable second person perspective, "you" are sucked straight into the mind of, well, yourself. You work at an Ultra-High-Risk department store too close to Blood Alley for anyone's comfort. You're made to watch an orientation video of interviews of past employees who are missing body parts and have suffered brain damage due to workplace accidents. You chill with co-workers with names like Sour Cream and humor his fetishist questions.  You get a quick thrill out of crushing boxes in the compactor. Your brain thinks up the weirdest shit while you're working. It just won't shut off. It never stops..." -THE NEXT BEST BOOK BLOG