An easy read, but not really a fun one. I enjoy unlikeable narrators when they’re multifaceted, but Jane was just rude and boring. There were too many characters to keep track of that offered little to the story.

The Devil Wears Prada is one of my favorite movies and Triple Sec was a five-star read for me, and these were said to be mixed in Work Nights, but I didn’t see much of either of them in this book.



Thank you Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

https://chireviewofbooks.com/2025/06/19/work-nights-erica-peplin/

“Why do you do this job?” my old boss asked. “The answer can’t be about a paycheck or groceries or because you need a job.” We then took turns peddling mission-driven drivel about our meaningful jobs. The only reasons I could honestly give were the ones she said I couldn’t. So, I lied. At the end of the meeting, she reminded us to be grateful for the important work we do. She was trying to help team morale. Morale stayed the same—bad.

That meeting—and many like it—were top of mind as I read Erica Peplin’s deeply millennial debut novel Work Nights. The novel follows Jane, a twenty-something ad planner at a legacy newspaper in New York City. The events of the novel occur over seven months, each section one month in Jane’s life as she works in “an office where people coughed and the printer was always broken,” the perfect way to describe the classic corporate American workplace.

Jane harbors a workplace crush on the apparently straight intern, Madeline, who is “the only thing that made going to the office remotely worthwhile.” Soon, through her group of friends who throw “Gay Shabbat” dinners, she meets Addy, an intense, serial monogamist musician, who is ready to settle down and commit. It sells this novel short to say it’s about a love triangle. What endeared me most to this story was not the messy, queer love triangle, but how the mess fit into the frank and eerily familiar depiction of what it means to be a corporate, millennial woman.

Through Jane, Peplin captures the cognitive dissonance of professional women. In her first month, after watching her coworkers leave thank you notes for their boss in gratitude for a dinner he threw for himself, Jane muses, “Nobody made me be a professional woman. It was a pressure I put on myself…And yet so much of my life happened inside the office that I knew it was changing me—stunting my thoughts and calcifying certain lonely habits.” Her ability to name how bad this job is for her doesn’t stop Jane from working late on someone else’s project or taking credit for a coworker’s plan. When she is complimented for that same plan, she “felt a momentary sensation of power,” and thinks, “It was a privilege to work in an office to have an address, a salary, a keyboard, and a title.” She recognizes the toxicity of the office, but that doesn’t stop her from leaning into it.

When my boss told me to be grateful for the work that was burning me out, I still kept chasing Inbox Zero like it would save me. I briefly felt saved when someone told me I was doing a good job. And then, I refreshed my inbox. This cycle is the curse of many corporate millennials—the knowledge that work shouldn’t be ruling our lives, but letting it anyway. We know, as Jane puts it, that “this gradual manipulation, this convoluted meritocracy, would slowly colonize my life until one day I’d wake up a middle-aged woman with a crick in her neck, complaining about her kid’s college loans and the ever-present threat of a layoff,” but we keep grinding, caught up in the vicious cycle. Our nine-to-five rules our time, personalities, and future, so we try to escape however we can.

Which brings us back to the love triangle—Jane’s escape. Madeline is young and flighty, dragging Jane along to clubs and jetting off to London or Berlin. Their relationship—if you can call it that—has shifting expectations and unclear rules. She is young and free from responsibility, a way for Jane to try to chase her youth instead of accepting that she is a “gainfully employed adult.” Addy, on the other hand, is ready to settle down. Though she is a touring musician, she offers the apparent stability of partnership. Jane says to Addy at one point, “Someday when I’m seventy-two…I’ll remember this room and you next to me in it.” It’s one of the only times she thinks of her future outside of the confines of work.

As is often the case in a love triangle, Jane tries to have her cake and eat it too, keeping up a texting relationship with Madeline, who’s living in Berlin, and having a toothbrush at Addy’s place in New York. Madeline and Addy offer a way to chase both a carefree past and a stable future, because the present of her day job is making her miserable. For me, the point was never who she would choose, or even if either of them would want to be chosen in the end. The point is that the specter of work hangs over everything, even after you have clocked out for the night.

i found this clever and funny and complicated. i never tired of our hard-to-like protagonist's internal monologue or even her string of mistakes — i found her relatable and sympathetic, as i found the depiction of being alive and capitalism and the pressure to settle down. this was great!

Work Nights is a character-led story of female desire and obsession with self-deprecating depression while struggling to find where you belong. Erica Peplin's writing was so immersive that it was as if I were following along with Jane.

There was such an accurate portrayal of the lies we tell ourselves when we feel inadequate and the fears we hold so closely. The mundanity of day-to-day is what creates our lives. We spend our time waiting in the form of working to gain time to truly feel like we are living. The proximity of our coworkers truly does begin and foster friendships, and sometimes it isn't realized until someone is replaced. The relationships and bonds we have with the ones we love are all we have in the end.

Despite the love present, depression still has a way of consuming and swallowing you whole. It keeps you at a distance and steals everything from you. It drags you down and puts you in a numb state, and affects the ones around you, but your brain doesn't allow you to see past the depression.

"There was no security in life. We were born fragile and searching, and we spent the rest of our lives that way."

I am rating this book 3.5 stars but rounding up to 4 stars! I would recommend this book to readers who have enjoyed Acts of Desperation or Housemates.

Thank you to Erica Peplin and Gallery Books for accepting my early access request to this book via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review!

This was an entertaining read that I finished in a few hours.
A well written story that kept me hooked from the very beginning.
The characters draw you in and keeps you flipping the pages.
I really enjoyed the writing style. I found myself hooked, turning the pages.

3.5 stars

A big big thank you to Gallery Books, NetGalley, and Sapphlit for the e-ARC! And a happy happy release day to Erica Pelin's Work Nights!

Jane works at New York City's most acclaimed newspaper, but her day-to-day routine is less than ideal. The only thing that makes work bearable is the paper's beautiful intern, Madeline. Despite Madeline's flaky nature, Jane manages to work her way into her life. In an attempt to pull her from a doomed relationship, Jane's roommate keeps dragging her to various outings where she meets a musician named Addy. Torn between the two, Jane has trouble keeping up with her lies that threaten to cause everything to collapse.

I'm not much of a fiction reader so this book was a welcome change from my usual reads. That being said, this wasn't necessarily my cup of tea.

The characters felt realistically flawed and the dialogue was fun and sharp. The scenes at the newspaper had some funny moments with the various office workers, and it was interesting to see how Jane's life and acquaintances differed in and out of the workplace. We as the reader got to see a lot of different parts of her life and I think that helped shape our vision of her by seeing it as opposed to her just telling us. Her interactions with both Madeline and Addy demonstrate a lot about how she views relationships. Plus the time we spend with her colleagues demonstrates her lack of love for her work and the lackluster environment in the fashion department.

With all that being said, I do wish there had been a more conclusive ending. It doesn't seem that Jane has a moment where she decides to try and change her behavior, and I was left wondering what it was all for and where she would go from here. I'll probably give the genre another shot, but this one just wasn't for me.

However, if you're a fan of literary fiction that's got the vibes of Sally Rooney and The Devil Wears Prada, this might be for you!

Received an ARC of this book through my book club and loved it. It's so funny but becomes emotionally charged as you read. I do wish it was a fairytale ending but I'm not surprised that it's not.
The writing reminds me of a wittier Emily Austin book maybe?
Just very lesbian and very real.

Jane Grabowski forces herself to the office every day just to see Madeline, the beautiful intern. Madeline doesn’t believe in labels. When Jane meets Addy, a romantic musician, she gets caught between them.

This one started very strong for me but didn’t quite finish as strong. I know a lot of readers loved it and I definitely see the appeal. It’s witty and funny, and true to life; especially the office antics and social life. For some reason I had a hard time keep in the characters straight but maybe it was my mood at the time.

“Our laughter was loud and maniacal, but that was one good thing about being heartsick. It made us giddy enough to think that being miserable was the same as being alive.”

Work Nights comes out 6/17.

I featured Work Nights in my June 2025 new releases video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q31xhbo1tE, and though I have not read it yet, I am so excited to and expect 5 stars! I will update here when I post a follow up review or vlog.

This book definitely reads like a lit fic. It’s much more character driven than plot driven…. but also there’s not really much character development either?

I have a hard time with books about nothing, so I didn’t love it, but if you enjoy a day-in-the-life of a queer late 20s living in NYC and doing corporate, this is an interesting view!

The book was well written, and the pacing was consistent. I also enjoyed the length.

I enjoyed this one a lot. It was a bit rambling at time but fit the story and the characters. If you are looking for a lot of action rather than internal monologue, this one might not be for you but, for me, it was just right. The ending was absolutely perfect, too.

Work Nights comes out next week on June 17, 2025, and you can purchase HERE!

I WAS A LONELY PIECE OF GARBAGE AND ALL I WANTED WAS TO BE touched.

Not in a gross way. I just wanted someone to touch my arms, my hands, and other places like that. I started wearing shortsleeved shirts on the train, hoping someone would bump into me. It happened eventually with an old woman. She didn't move her arm, so I didn't move mine, and for the next three or four stops, we sat like that with our arms touching. It was nice. Her skin was soft and warm, and when she got up with her plastic bags and cane, I wanted to follow her. I thought I could help her up the steps, walk her home, make soup.

Thank you to NetGalley & Gallery Books for the ARC!
This was a quick and funny read. Dark humor. Chaos. Queerness. Exploring your 20s. I’m here for all of it!

I did not like any character in this book. This book was somehow miserable yet the funniest book I’ve read in a while.. I’m talking deep belly laughs. This author really captured and weird people can be.. I loved it!

reading this sitting in my little office cube really hit

I ate through this, reading most of it in one day once I actually got into it

Jane is kind of awful in the way that she acts on most of her thoughts (but not so irredeemable and crazy that I was not able to sympathize with her) and experiencing her life in my current mental space was so freeing in some ways. I was just along for the ride as she dealt with a lot of the stuff I have been feeling as a queer twenty-something trying to figure out my place in the world.

I also LOVED the narration and the way that time is not easily discerned. I love this style in general, but I think the overall vibe of the story really works with it and Peplin crafted it so well.

10/10 would recommend

thank you to Netgalley, Simon & Schuster, and Sapph-Lit for providing me with a free and advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review!

Parts of this were so wonderfully dry and witty, it was a shame I just couldn't quite get over the deep cynicism that pervades Jane's outlook on life.

Also confirmed that I like myself too much to ever put myself through a situationship.

Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the eARC.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this free ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: June 17, 2025

Oh man…I need to take a breath because I feel like I read this in one long one. Stream of consciousness writing with insufferably cringey gen z characters? Funny and sarcastic and kind of a chaotic coked out fever dream of train wreck I couldn’t look away from?

whoever comped this to emily austin and jen beagin was half right.

a really strong debut that nails the classic litfic style of halting sentences and unlikable, piteous characters, but lacks some of the emotion i'd hoped for when i read the summary. kind of like pizza girl if pizza girl was convenience store woman. still a win for the author and the genre.

thanks to everyone for the arc :)

4 ⭐️ Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Do you remember what it was like being in your 20’s? Liking the person you shouldn’t and hating the person you should? Feeling stuck in a job that provides no passion but pays the bills? Living in a city that doesn’t feel like home but also afraid to start fresh somewhere else?

Well then you’ll be able to relate to Work Nights. The writing is witty and sharp, with a sarcastic sense of humor. I also think the author did a great job at describing the typical lesbian drama, falling for the straight girl that will never work out. The perfect light hearted book I need to read this summer.

I look forward to what this author has in store for the future!

Perfect for fans of Anna Dorn and Halle Butler. A laugh out loud slice of life novel about a commitment phobe and life in the corporate world against the backdrop of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Couldn’t get enough of it.

I normally love meandering, character-driven books with minimal plot and a lot of hijinks, but something about this one just didn't work for me. I was hoping for more Jewish rep, more character build out, and more of a point? As much as I like unlikeable narrators, this one just never fully came together for me, I couldn't see her as a fully formed human. I did like the queerness and the close friendships as being the one thing to remain at the end of the novel- really powerful to see that happen in a novel with so many love interests. But that ending sadly wasn't enough to save me from the slog of the rest of the book. Big disappointment for a book I picked up as soon as I got approved.