Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book! It was engaging and drew me in right away. The plot moved quickly and didn’t lag and bore me in places like some books do.

The story focused on two characters, Paxton and Zinnia, two new employees and friends at “the Cloud” which is possibly one of the only employers left for people. The cloud sells everything, delivers by drone, and workers live on site. Workers don’t make much money or get time off. It’s not the most ideal work environment.

I’m glad the story only covered a few characters and didn’t get bogged down in too many stories. Great read!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

THE WAREHOUSE is told through company blog posts and the lenses of Paxton and Zinna, who are hired on at Cloud, a company that has driven out pretty much all of its competitors through rock bottom pricing (due in part by government support due to the company’s green initiatives) and their unique drone delivery service. Employees live onsite in dorm-style accommodations and are paid in company credits, not unlike the terribly unfair system used by mines in the past. The job takes almost all of their time and eats away bit by bit at their souls in the process. Both Paxton and Zinna have their own agendas, but the company harbors the scariest dirty laundry of all.

The corporate blog posts give a nice insight the creator of Cloud’s vision for the company. Gibson, who is dying of cancer, is on the verge of announcing his successor and plans to visit as many “MotherCloud” sites as possible before he passes. I liked how the dark side of the company is mirrored in the details about the poor living conditions of the MotherCloud facility.

The concept is killer, which explains why publishers and movie producers snapped this book up. The plot, however, slips into jump the shark territory. The book also lacks the great characterization and heart of the author’s fantastic Ash McKenna series. I’ve read all five books in the series and the characters simply pop off the page. I found it hard to care for Paxton and Zinna. The former is simply too naive, and the latter too cold and manipulative. One of the character’s demeanor is described as a blank piece of paper, which pretty much sums up the characterization for all the story people in this book. The couple’s love story lacks emotion like the food in the Live-Play recreational area lacks flavor.

Hart dedicates the book to Maria Fernandes, who died while trying to eek out a living working three jobs. His dedication, in my opinion, is the whole heart and soul of the book, rather than the novel itself.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Books for providing an Advance Reader Copy.

Lots of people are going to love this book because of the way it turns corporate America into a villain, particularly a certain retailer, who is obviously the inspiration for Cloud. I, however, prefer Hart’s more character-driven Ash McKenna series.

A cautionary tale for our times, The Warehouse combines the danger of Big Brother with the very real business paradigm we seem to be creating in our world. Governments chosen and then run by big business, people left with fewer and fewer choices as economies fall apart and climate change destroys our environment. This fast-paced thriller is a must read for everyone who loves the convenience of Alexa and their Echo Dots.

The Warehouse is an exciting technological and psychological novel. Perhaps the book's most stellar feature, in addition to its plotting, is the way author Rob Hart incorporates a number of stories and voices to unweave the storyline. Recommended reading and a well-written book.

The Warehouse is set in a time that seems distant but as you read you realize may not be that far off from where we are. I thought the author did a fabulous (if not predictable) job creating and establishing the characters in this story. This story was so well written I could play it in my head like a movie. The characters including the main “bad guy” character were easy to like and root for.

Outside of being a great story this book had me thinking and asking questions about our own world situation and if this life is really that far fetched.

Special thanks to Rob Hart and Crown Publishing for the advanced copy of The Warehouse. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.

Cloud, a giant tech company, has created company live-work facilities, where everything you might need is in one place. After his start-up business fails because of Cloud's demand, Paxton is desperate for a job. Zinnia, a corporate spy, has been tasked with finding out about Cloud's energy producing facility. Paxton, assigned to security, quickly becomes an asset to Zinnia, an asset that she is falling form.

This was a well constructed and fascinating world. The characters were realistic and multi-dimensional. I enjoyed this book and would love to read more set in this world. Overall, highly recommended.

The Warehouse is an interesting story about what Amazon could become. It is a city unto itself with its own rules. I loved the interview and the job descriptions. I enjoyed the character development; they were so well-written that I felt I knew them. I thought I knew what was going to happen,but I was totally surprised and delighted. I like the way each segment is dedicated to a single person and that each chapter had its own title. The author is a great writer who understands the characters and the subject. He is able to take an otherwise boring idea and make it brilliant. There are so many things going on that I was amazed That I was able to keep up,and yet the author made it easy and fun. I hope to read more from him and I highly recommend this book.

The Warehouse is a clever 1984-esque dystopian view of a future where corporate America is the ONLY America. The company called Cloud (with plenty of thinly veiled pot shots at Amazon) has redefined its work force by allowing its employees to live within the constructs where they work, creating a haven (or prison) from the rest of the world and in the process, of course, maximizing revenues and profits. It's an enthralling premise that simultaneously acts as a warning, as the deeper in you get the more you could see this playing out somehow in our future.

What really elevates this novel above the premise are the characters we're quickly introduced to--one coming to Cloud after losing his business to the company and another entering in an act of corporate espionage. Their stories are expertly intertwined to create a dynamic--and tension--the reader cares about. I also really appreciated the humanity that was brought to the founder of Cloud. Though it's easy to hate what he's done and the way he uses the system for greater gain, in lesser hands it would have been easy to make him a villain just because he's evil or wants to destroy the world. You may not agree with his philosophies, but you can see that he's sincere in what he's attempted to do, which added a nice layer to the story.

I could have used a little more complexities with some of the systems in place at Cloud for tracking employees, especially for a business as sophisticated at this conglomerate, and I would have loved to have seen more of the world outside just the one hub, but ultimately this story and its characters captivated me and certainly kept me flying through the pages. A clever concept delivered with care and precision. Almost sounds like a product that could be coming to you soon from your local Cloud epicenter. A solid recommend.

This book is a twisty nice little thriller that deserves maybe 5 stars for that with a lot of rollovers however it is also based on common themes of many books that came out in the 70s and 80s with a modern more callous faceup.
The Boomers before me that were writing classics [some of which are mentioned here but by far not necessarily the best], of the need to reign things in and actually work on saving nature and the environment and helping people so we didn't end up with the world crisis we are in right now. They should have been taken more seriously by the whole instead of lauded heavily, made into movies and then somewhat discarded by the masses as far as actual messages put forth. As a young teen I watched [illegally] Soylent Green as well as copiously read all the sci fi this can happen books and watched the movies [friends older brothers would sneak us in the drive ins and theatres] and it stuck with me hard and at the time many were raising the alarms of overpopulation but it was suppressed second hand to claims of religion and actual intent by some for control. Major points in time this could have been turned 180 around if people had as a whole been proactive & worked within the best systems available. Not allowing the reagan or bushes in would have been key along with foremost and in particular trump. reagan in made a major nosedive with the shadow group that supported him with civil rights and environment, bushes took it way further worldwide. Then there was the this last election where someone told everyone what they would do and was supported by people that were well known fascists and we had the true dolt syndrome.
I could go on for hours but will get back to the book. We start out with Paxton that is on a bus to a cloud facility. Cloud s the next generation Amazon as this is based on a Amazon like take over of commerce and a Bezos in platinum overdrive. Being a book freak from a very early age when I discovered Amazon I was in heaven. I could actually find the books I wanted that had been stolen, lost or never bought at prices I couldn't believe. There were many like me out there as Amazon grew into something people have started to fear. Lets be clear: people created the Walmarts & Amazons they had and have choices and have as usual exaggerated on both sides.
I almost got hired for a customer service phone position a little over a year ago. It would have probably been the best job working for someone else I would have ever had. As we only have AT&T here & they have a complete monopoly they cut speeds & reception a year and a half ago while charging the same. Regardless of what Amazon tried to do to hire me it didn't work at the time. [& they really did try] Companies like AT&T were put into check before & need to be again. It tool mass people of this area changing services to somewhat make them give us back what we should have but would take federal and state to break them up or put them into check.
Paxton is in an overpopulated screwed up world and environment is going to a Cloud facility which is the only game going pretty much to survive & meets Zinna a corporate spy & assassin. [she is my favorite character]. It goes through their experiences working in the facility and some minor characters I want to touch on. Hadley ia cute little innocent doe girl and then Ember your stereo typical I want to blow everything up because I have the sads regardless of the amount of damage and death it will cause billions & any hope of survival of the marginalized, environment or any animals that still exist. Will tell you this was a romp and while some things I already had ideas of what would happen other looped me.
I will say the Embers of the country helped create the current environment as much as the fascists fully. They aided them in the deaths, murders, extinctions and carnage through actions and inaction. All these things are on the Embers of the worlds heads secondary or mainly in some cases as they have undone the hard work and sacrifices others have made over the decades with wanton disregard. There is no reset button nor has there been, it will be much harder to pull out of the situation country & world wide now than it would have been a few years ago. Getting off my soapbox, yes would recommend this book, but think about it & read all the older classic books that tried to warn you before and ask yourselves if you are part of the problem or the fix. People that can't create destroy and there are too many of the later in control now.

Wow, Rob Hart really hates Amazon. I mean, he hates the fictitious company Cloud which is obviously not Amazon in any way, shape or form even though it obviously is a stand in for Amazon.

In the future the world's gone to Hell and everything sucks because not-Amazon stepped in and took over everything turning everyone in to their indentured servants, or something like that. Cloud, the not-Amazon company, has company settlements all across the United States where workers live in dorms on the company campus where they work in various fields based on their backgrounds: security, tech, food service, maintenance and the dreaded warehouse pickers. This particular story revolves around Paxton, a bitter man whose company went under because of the demands Cloud was putting on it to lower costs, and Zinnia, a corporate spy sent in to uncover just how the company is producing the power for these complexes with green energy. The two meet briefly on the way to the Cloud complex, a relationship Paxton wants to pursue but which Zinnia thinks is a distraction.
Paxton winds up in security with some real stereotypical security guys and a big bad southern sheriff. Zinnia winds up as a picker in the Amazon, I mean Cloud, distribution center. Their stories intertwine and become somewhat more interesting, but you just can't get past how much the author takes out his vitriol against Amazon though this book. Many of the characters are one dimensional and often just there to move the plot along. The protagonists are not very likable and make really dumb choices based on what you suppose to be their backgrounds. Paxton is tasked with busting up a drug ring because of his prison guard experience but he doesn't understand how the sheriff is playing him? Sure thing.
Overall not a horrible read. The mystery aspect and espionage adventure parts were fun at times, but a lot of it reads like a high schooler's diatribe against the evils of Amazon.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the digital ARC of The Warehouse, by Rob Hart. How often do we order on-line products because they can be bought in the comfort of our homes and placed in our hands within 24 hours, sometimes even the same day? Most people will confess that this is their preferred way to shop, but most of us would have trouble explaining the process that seems to make our lives so convenient. In the near future, citizens are watching small businesses and familiar chain stores disappear and the economy failing. People are searching for jobs, which are scarce, so they are turning to The Cloud, where every job and life on the cloud seems like a dream. The Cloud provides a perfect place to live and work, so it seems. Paxton is initially enthralled with his new life and job, but questions the perfection of this world as he is charmed by his friend, Zinnia, who is trying to find all the flaws in The Cloud, and shut it down. Is this future world looming in our near future? As you read this book, you will question the future of our world and the way we let big business control our thoughts and action and shape a new, unsettling world.

What happens when the quest for ever-cheaper products, delivered ever faster, completes the takeover of American business? The Warehouse. The Cloud company.

Cloud is to Amazon what the Black Death is to a cold. Cloud takes everything down to the cheapest possible solution, whether it is products, delivery, employees, vendors, customers or government.

Amazon today hosts “camperforces”, RV parks to house their seasonal workforce, who migrate around the country seeking work. Cloud builds huge dormitories housing tens of thousands who must wear ID trackers to access their rooms, the trams, the workspace, the bathrooms. Employees work 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, with nominal breaks. Warehouses cover hundreds of acres, too large to see from one end to the other; with few bathrooms and break rooms scattered inadequately. Cloud pays in script and charges hefty fees to convert between script and dollars. It’s the company town and company store on steroids.

Cloud’s founder Gibson Wells believes the market should dictate everything, that customers value low prices and convenience, and he has Cloud work aggressively to swipe ideas and push vendors into bankruptcy in order to cut prices ever lower.

He tells us about his triumph with Cloud Pickles. He liked a brand of $5 pickles and wanted the company to sell them for $2, but the company could not. So Cloud came up with their own almost-as-good product and drove the original pickle company out of business.

Cloud privatized the FAA in order to deliver via millions of drones and expects to privatize the rest of the government. He never considers the long term end state because the ends – cheap products and services – justify the means.

This is not libertarian economics run amok, it is totalitarian rule with a bit of bread and circuses thrown in.

Morality Play
One way to read The Warehouse is as dystopian economics. What happens when one company dominates everything, from transport to food to retail to government services? What happens when that company is just about the only employer left?

How do the people running this behemoth justify their predatory behavior? How do their employees, their vendors respond to the never-ending push push push for more for less?

When people forget the basic rules of decency and morality, stop following the Golden Rule, they become monsters. That’s what is happening in Cloud. Gibson Wells sees employees and vendors, even the country, as giant sponges to be wrung dry, turnips to suck to dust. He justifies everything by his goal for cheap products and services, ignoring the cost to everyone else.

Paxton and Zinnia, two new employees at a Cloud warehouse, also have decisions to make. Paxton had invented a gadget to cook the perfect boiled egg and his company did quite well, for a while. Then Cloud demanded to purchase at below Paxton’s costs and put him out of business. Now Paxton is a reluctant security guard at the warehouse. Zinnia is a corporate spy hired to find out how Cloud is powering this enormous facility.

Paxton is more reactive while Zinnia takes action on her own. Zinnia discovers a creepy pervert supervisor and tries to protect others from him; Paxton later discovers the man was never fired, just reassigned. (The security lead says it’s quieter and easier to move someone than to fire tem, although Cloud routinely axes their lowest performing decile every quarter.)



Characters
Gibson Wells is the most interesting character. He narrates his story now as he is dying, and manages to justify the destruction Cloud has done by remembering the good he has done. Or thinks he has done. It’s very difficult to justify putting millions out of work and treating employees like dirt just to cut a buck off the price of some gadget.

One lesson I learned very early in purchasing vintage glass for my small business was that deals need to be good for everyone. You have to be willing to leave money, not on the table, but in the pockets of your supplier. Otherwise you won’t have a supplier. Apparently Gibson Wells never learned this. He thinks it’s great if he’s the only supplier.

Zinnia is fascinating too. She has zero intention of falling in love, or even caring about anyone at Cloud. She’s there to do her job, get the information she came for, and get out successfully. Instead she gets pulled into an affair with Paxton that may cost her life.

Paxton is there mainly as a foil, to move the story along and to show us a bit more about Cloud and the misery it causes.

There are a few minor characters, also well drawn and believable. The other security people are willing to ignore cruelty in order to keep Cloud running smoothly, while dealing harshly with small infractions. They see their job as keeping the place running the best it can for everyone, making mediocre omelettes while breaking more than a few eggs.

Overall
5 Stars

I received The Warehouse via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The nice part about living in a present-day America that edges closer and closer to becoming a full-blown dystopia rife with all kinds of political and capitalism-driven horrors is that it gives authors plenty of raw material to work with. Whether it’s Chuck Wendig’s recent, Wanderers, which used the ascent of a Trump-like president, climate change, and artificial technology to tell of an epic 800-page apocalypse, or Rob Hart’s The Warehouse, it’s hard not to recognize the modern realities that forecast the various states of ruination at the core of these stories.

At an unspecified point in the near future, a massive online retailer has taken over. Economically, commercially, and, to a degree, governmentally, everything belongs to Cloud and its dying, insanely wealthy CEO Gibson Well. Situated on the outskirts of one of America’s many ghost cities lies a MotherCloud facility, a futuristic analog to the company towns where employees live, work, and shop. Among its latest batch of new entry-level hires are Paxton, a former CEO whose company was bought out by Cloud, and Zinnia, an industrial spy whose been tasked with infiltrating Cloud and stealing its secrets.

Presented as a successor to Amazon, Gibson was able to get one over on Bezos with his company, Cloud, by cracking the code to aerial drone delivery and lightweight packaging, a task prodded along by his governmental lobbying and pockets deep enough to allow him to privatize the FAA. Gibson himself is a rather complicated character, which makes him feel all the more real. As he tells of his successes and failures, his dreams and ambitions, Hart paints a fully realized portrait of a man grappling with his legacy as his final days approach. Gibson Wells has changed the world, perhaps even permanently, and what he’s left behind will forever mark mankind with his legacy. As we learn more about him, and the impact his life’s work has made, it becomes quite clear Gibson is hardly the perfect hero he believes himself to be. It’s hard, however, to paint him as a clear-cut, James Bond-type villain, twirling his mustache and rooting for the world to end. He does want to do good, but gives little thought to the consequences of his actions, firmly rooted in an “ends justify the means” mindset. His right-wing libertarian ego prevents him from seeing the harm he’s wrought, but his earnest idealism make him a fairly sympathetic antagonist to humanity.

Like Gibson, Paxton and Zinnia are equally complicated, morally conflicted protagonists. Hart does a wonderful job crafting complex characters and shifting reader’s expectation on how to view them. That a love story develops between these two should be of little surprise if you’ve ever read a thriller before, but the nature of that story and the multiple dimensions it exists within are a beautiful exhibit of the author’s skill as a storyteller. You’re never quite sure how things are going to shake out, who to root for, or when the jig will finally be up. It’s through their eyes that we get the ground-level view of life inside the MotherCloud facility, the sad and hard state of life outside it, and the various shades of grey that permeate their lives and the world around them.

Workers live and breath Cloud. Their homes are onsite, within this gargantuan facility where they work. Each worker is required at all times to wear a smart device, kind of like a FitBit, that tracks their work performance, monitors their location within the facility, provides them with job duties, and allows them access to and from their dormitory, shopping centers, and the community restroom and showers. The MotherCloud is, for all intents and purposes, a prison facility in the panopticon mold, its laborers a willing slave force. They’re paid in company credits, rather than the US Dollar, but if they are fired during a monthly Cut Day they can transfer whatever credits they’ve made to a non-Cloud bank for a nominal service fee and whatever the current exchange rate might be. Employee performance is algorithm-based, so workers on the stock floor are forced to hustle, constantly running from one end of the warehouse to the other to fulfill orders and keep their ranking in the green lest they be hauled off the premises by the blue-shirted security guards. Everything within the Cloud runs on the almighty algorithm. Unions are anathema, workers rights nonexistent, and there are no weekends, no vacations, no sick leave, unless you want to lose a star ranking and risk losing everything. Outside the facility is nothing but the remains of an American town that used to be, its businesses long since shuttered and foreclosed as customers grew to rely on Cloud to fulfill their every whim.

If any of this sounds familiar, it should. Cloud is, of course, a thinly veiled critique on Amazon business practices with a polished 1984 veneer, but also American capitalism and greed run amok. While Amazon enjoys a -1% tax rate on hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, us working class schmucks are only a few possible, terrible steps removed form the bleak future Hart’s envisioned. Every underwater mortgage, golden parachute, bankrupted competitor, government lobbyist, unchecked monopoly and unfettered monopsony, and cut to education and public welfare programs gets us that much closer to having to choose between our personal freedom and being a wage slave for life without any reasonable alternatives in between. One of the recurring themes in The Warehouse is the issue of choosing the lesser evil. Is it better to have personal freedom and possess nothing, or to have everything provided for you and be nothing?

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same…but it’s also true that a society that forgets its past is doomed to repeat old mistakes. It’s possible that advancements in technology and corporate business ethics could carry us forward into a new epoch, but it’s just as likely they’ll all too easily return us to a messy and difficult past of hardships and human capital in a future where we’ll owe our soul to the company store.

The Warehouse by Rob Hart

Pros: interesting characters, fast paced, thought-provoking

Cons:

Gibson Wells, founder of the Cloud tech empire that dominates the US economy, is dying. After Cloud puts Paxton’s business under, he applies to work at one of their MotherCloud facilities, where people work and live. He expects this to be a temporary gig, to earn enough money so he can be his own boss again. Zinnia has been hired to infiltrate a Cloud facility and steal proprietary information.

Their paths collide inside the company in a novel that explores how far corporate America will go to ‘make the world a better place’.

The book takes place during the slow economic and environmental collapse of America. The world is not as apocalyptic as Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, but it’s getting there. With fewer and fewer options, more people are opting to work for Cloud, which has both caused many of the problems mentioned in the book even as it tries to (claims to) make things better.

At the start of the book I felt sympathy for Wells, but as I learned more about him, and saw the predatory nature behind his smiles and the abusive personality behind his policies I started to despise him. Though Zinnia is also manipulative I found I still liked her at the end of the book. She’s feisty and smart and I wanted her to be happy. I thought she and Paxton made a good couple and hoped they’d stay together, despite some of her choices towards the end. Paxton was a mixed bag. I liked him but he was easily manipulated by everyone around him, which made me feel less sympathetic towards him.

The book was surprisingly fast paced. Adult dystopian fiction generally drags a bit due to excess worldbuilding or political sentiment. The focus here really is on the characters so it was a quick read - and hard to put down towards the end.

That’s not to say there weren’t some poignant moments where you can see how our own world is heading in this direction. The company is obviously modelled after Amazon and Walmart and their practices of forcing producers to cut costs so they can sell products a the lowest price possible. It does end of a slightly more positive note than other dystopian books as well.

This is definitely worth checking out.

What if climate change and the complete collapse of retail stores left the planet with almost nothing but a monolithic, Amazon-like online store called Cloud to supply not only everyday needs, but a place to live and work as well? This is the dystopia depicted in The Warehouse. It follows two new Cloud employees, and the founder (who is dying from cancer, and blogs about his career and his road trip to visit as many Cloud facilities as he can before the end).

Neither of the employees are thinking of the job as a permanent thing. Paxton is a former prison guard who founded a company that was destroyed by Cloud; Zinnia is a corporate spy who has been hired to infiltrate Cloud. Gibson is Cloud's founder, who we see only via blog entries until the climax of the novel. Much of the novel focuses on Paxton and Zinnia as they learn their new jobs (Paxton is assigned to security, Zinnia to "picking," pulling ordered items for shipment), become romantically involved with each other, and try to advance their own priorities.

There are of course complications, leading to Gibson's visit to their MotherCloud warehouse, which brings everything to a head. Zinnia and Paxton both learn things that few Cloud employees know (or anyone else, for that matter). Cloud has already taken a dominant role in society, and Gibson means to take things much further. In the end Paxton makes a choice for personal freedom over comfort, throwing his lot in with a group of revolutionaries.

Hart has crafted an exciting story, and the contemporary reflections serve to amplify the message rather than oversell it. Hopefully things will never get this bad, but if they do the human spirit is invincible.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy.

One of the best books I've read recently! This page-turner features two believable characters who both end up working for "The Cloud", an Amazon-like facility with "work-life" dormitories and no privacy whatsoever. Each worker wears tracking devices and job security is non-existent. Paxton is simply looking for a job, while Zinnia is infiltrating the organization to learn its secrets. You'll never look at a box on a porch in the same way after finishing this thought-provoking new book.

The Warehouse is one of those books that absolutely sucked me in from the vey beginning. I wanted to call in sick at work just so I could sit at home and read all day. The best thing about it was I can see our future in this book. Replace Cloud with the current "biggest online retailer" we all know and love and this is us in the near future. Horrifying...

I recommend this to anyone who loves futuristic suspense thrillers.

An eerie modern take on Orwell's 1984. What struck me the most was the plausibility. It's crossed my mind, as I'm sure it has yours, that a monopoly online retailer has the power to change the world. Is changing the world.

In the USA especially, where convenience and instant gratification rule, it is easy to 'go with the flow' without looking at the possible consequences. Portrayed so well in this story.

The world has become a harsh environment. We have polluted and consumed to the edge of extinction. There is only one escape - The Cloud -

The Cloud is an behemoth online retailer that provides for all your needs including housing and medical care if you're one of the lucky ones to work for them. The conditions are atrocious to us readers, but to the characters who have only the harsher outside world to go to it's better than nothing. It's truly scary to see how the characters are easily brainwashed into 'the system'. It's even scarier to think that it could/would happen to me.

Hang on for this thrilling ride into a near future reality. The end will have you gasping and asking for more.

I absolutely dig this book! Such a great concept, I was interested, I believed it, I believe it CAN happen. It made me think a lot about what I would do IF it happened.

I am a big fan of dystopian tho. Freaks me out and really makes me think and I’m all about that. I love a mindless thriller most, yes, but I also love thinking books too!

My one criticism? The ending. Didn’t do it for me.

Loved the alternate chapters from Zinnia and Paxton’s perspectives, with Gibson mixed in there.

Who are you rooting for? I think you’ll find yourself questioning who throughout this book and that’s awesome.

If you can let yourself go and get into the book and get into what you would do in this alternative (and very possible) world then you’ll love this book too!

The Warehouse is a dark thriller about a world where an Amazon like company called "The Cloud" has taken over as the retailer of choice. The creator of the Cloud is dying and trying to visit as many of the mother Cloud locations - 1 per state - as he can. Meanwhile, the story follows 2 protagonists who are hired at the same hiring event as they start their new jobs, though one is not quite who they pretend to be.
Part of the book is the blog entries from the Cloud's creator, where he talks about the history of the Cloud and what his view of the world is. In general, he comes across like every business leader who has absolutely no clue about what his underlings are doing, and has no sympathy for the downsides of what his business model has wrought. In my opinion, he comes across as a mix of Steve Jobs, the Walton family, and most arrogant business owners who somehow think they are due to make millions off the labor of others because the whole thing was originally their idea. He is a very unsympathetic character and I was honestly surprised that he didn't have more of hand in the main event, the so-called Black Friday Massacres that are hinted at with little explanation until the final chapters, that caused the Cloud to become the retailer of choice.
There are some very cliched moments - a manager/pervert who manages to get people fired when they complain about his behavior; tying one's rating to willingness to work unpaid overtime, etc. - that are probably meant to be satirical but come across as unlikely or absurd.