I was immediately drawn into Break Room by its incredible cover. It’s so bright and eye-catching that I immediately noticed it in the bookshop, but it was when I noticed the author that I was really intrigued. Break Room is written by Lee Mi-ye, who wrote one of my favourite cosy books, Dallergut Dream Department Store. I just knew I had to pick this one up. 

So, Break Room follows eight unsuspecting people who are invited to participate in a mysterious new reality show called Break Room. It starts as an opportunity for fame or riches, but it is soon revealed to be something far worse when the contestants realise why they were chosen to be on the show. They’ve been voted in by their own co-workers as the people they’d least like to share a break room with.

All but one of them on the show are supposedly horrible coworkers, and to win the show, they must find the imposter that has been planted by the show’s producers. They’re labelled as ‘villains,’ and as the game starts, the contestants are left to come to terms with the fact that their actions at work may be coming across very differently from how they think they are. The participants begin to form alliances and start to become paranoid, they must realise that surviving the show isn’t the only challenge – they must also learn to face who they are themselves.

I do think that the book could’ve done with being a little bit longer. The reality show part of it ended quite abruptly, and while I was happy with what I got, I definitely would’ve liked to have more just because it was so interesting. However, despite this book being so short, I really felt like the characters were all very well fleshed out. I felt like I knew them enough to know how they’d act throughout the show. I didn’t guess who had been planted on the show, but that doesn’t really matter because that’s not what the book is really about. 

It is a book that makes you think about the way you act at work. Would anyone vote for you to be on a show like this? I’d like to think I’m a nice person to work with, but, then again, most of these characters don’t see themselves as being annoying or weird either. As I said, I picked up this book because I’d loved the author’s previous work, but I was also intrigued by the game show premise. With the success of shows like The Traitors, I thought it might be a little bit like that, and I guess it kind of was, but it’s not something I’d recommend to people who liked the show just because it didn’t really feel like the show when reading. However, the contestants have to break rules to find clues that will give them hints about who the mole is, so it’s pretty interesting to learn about the characters this way.

So this is a book I’d definitely recommend. It’s an interesting read about toxic workplace culture, and I’ll still be reading whatever this author puts out next. One thing to note is that the book ended up being a lot shorter than I expected, and ended pretty abruptly because of that! The last 50 or so pages of the hardback edition I read here in the UK were an excerpt from Dallergut Dream Department Store!