9.1.2011 | Thursday

Confessions of a Call Center Gal

category: Book Reviews
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Confessions of a Call Center Galtitle: Confessions of a Call Center Gal
author: Lisa Lim
series: Call Center #1
published: 25 February 2011
publisher: Giffin Press
genre(s): contemporary, humor, romance
pages: 312
source: author
format: eBook
buy/shelve it: Amazon | B&N | Goodreads

rating: five-stars | series rating: five-stars

the blurb

Madison Lee is a fresh college grad, ready to take on the world of print media. But she has zero luck landing a job. Unemployment is at ten percent and on the rise. Desperate and left with no other options, she accepts a position as a service rep at a call center in Pocatello, Idaho. At the Lightning Speed call center in Spudsville, Maddy plunges into the wild and dysfunctional world of customer service where Sales is prided over Service and an eight hour shift is equivalent to eight hours of callers bashing her over the phone. Oh sure, the calls are bad. But Maddy manages to find humor on the phone and off the phone. And with all the salacious drama behind the calls, there is never a dull moment at the Lightning Speed call center. 

Lately . . . Maddy has been pining for her smolderingly gorgeous co-worker Mika Harket. Now things are heating up on the phone--and elsewhere. Don't hang up on this novel. Working at a call center has never been this garish . . . or this delightful.


my review

Confessions of a Call Center Gal is the debut novel of author Lisa Lim, and it is a fantastic start to what I hope is a long line of books.  I loved just about everything about this book!  I was hooked from the very beginning and just couldn’t put it down.  The book is a wonderful mix of humor and even some sadness and bittersweet moments.  Maddy and her best friend Karsynn are fresh out of college and neither girl can find a job.  Sick of living off of her mother and completely bored, Maddy decides to visit Kars in Idaho, and that visit becomes a permanent move when the girls get jobs as customer service reps in a call center.

There were times when I was just laughing out loud at some of the phone calls Maddy recieves in the call center.  I frequently went back and reread them just to giggle some more.  There were others that were sweet and cute, even some that were heartachingly sad.  Much of the book centers around the call center itself, and the people Maddy meets there, but there is plenty to the story outside of it as well.  Maddy’s crush on Mika, a co-worker, was fun to read about, although there were times that I just wanted to scream at them to get to it and get together!  But the inevitable bad timing and misunderstandings just added to the anticipation of the story.  There was a subplot with Kars that injected a bit of seriousness and no small amount of sadness into the story, and my heart wanted to break for her.

The characters in this book were wonderful and easily believable.  Definately in the light-spirited tone of the book, near the end of the book there was a memo sent out in the call center that had character names that had me laughing hysterically.  All of the characters were great, although I think Truong and Hilary were among my favorites of the supporting cast.  I had a perfect mental image of Hilary that stayed trhoughout the book, and Truong had me laughing out loud!

This is a fabulously fun read that I highly recommend!  The characters are great and the call center stories will give you an entirely different point of view.  A really fun book!  And, in keeping with the fun tone of the book, watch the author’s “dream cast” trailer below!!

About Lisa Lim

Lisa Lim is the author of chick lit novel Confessions of a Call Center Gal. She holds a journalism degree from the UW-Madison and is a former copy editor and technical writer for a software company. She is also an ex-call center gal.

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