When "Don't Be Evil" Fails, Try "Don't Be Boring": It's worked for us since 1958.


Derek is LitenVärld's most loyal employee—he lives and breathes the store. He practices customer service mantras in the mirror. He even lives in a shipping container graciously provided by the company in the back lot. So what if the other employees think he's weird. He only cares what his boss Trisha thinks—until he disappoints her by calling in sick after the the wormhole opens up. Suddenly, something weird is growing in Derek's throat, and higher management wants to talk to him...

Anytime there's a problem, throw the least convenient people overboard.


I really, really enjoyed this!

I don't really want to spoil too much of it, although the blurb does mention that he's assigned to the special inventory team to hunt down defective toys, and he meets four strangers who look exactly like him. However, the main plotline is the Island of Misfit Toys meets Send in the Clones meets hyper-capitalism.

Derek was a fascinating main character, and I want to say autistic-coded? From his stimming to hyperfocusing to his struggles on social cues (hard same dude, I mean, how do people just inherently get social cues and shit), it seemed that way? Although he never outright says it, but I really, really enjoyed the representation. He's always felt distant and different because he is different, and while there are reasons for that that he can't control, he also discovers there are other things he can control—and influence. And that family and friends can be found in many different places.

I really wish that it was longer, but what I got was pleasant, incredibly queer, and so much fun—while also being an insightful take-down of capitalistic, dehumanizing big box stores and upper management and hyper masculinity, and in a way, while also being a beautiful response to everything that happened in 2020?

By that I mean—how when the pandemic first started (and to today, over a year later), non-disabled or immunocompromised people basically threw every vulnerable person under the bus and blatantly disregarded or callously swept-aside marginalized, vulnerable communities because those communities weren't convenient to the Greater Society.

In a sense, this feels like a love letter to those who have disabilities, visible or invisible, or those who are neurodiverse or just don't fit in to whatever MainStream (*ahem* whyte, cisallohet society) deems acceptable.

And it is fantastic.

From the author's note, which seems like a perfect ending for this review:

If you're reading this book, and have gotten this far down in the acknowledgments, I'm grateful for you too. It means that we survived 2020, despite its best efforts. Fuck yeah.


I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review

Thanks, Netgalley, for giving me this free eARC in exchange for a review!

*Defekt* is a follow-up novella to *Finna*, about Derek the Model Employee of this weird, multi-dimensional company, and about what makes him that like That. It follows him from the day before the events of *Finna*, through his first ever sick day taken at the company, and then to his punishment Special Inventory shift where he learns even more about the Secrets of fantasy IKEA.

I was very excited for *Finna* to come out last year-- the description of a kind of, comedy-of-customer-service meeting an IKEA parody seemed like it could be very cute. I did LIKE *Finna*, and I liked *Defekt* in a similar way, although I thought both books were a little, lacking in some areas. *Finna*, I thought, was cute in the characters and relationships zone, kind of eye-rollingly heavy-handed with the "this is what your bosses at your minimum wage job want you to do" typed stuff, and I thought, disappointingly far from the concept of "IKEA maze" when it started going into like full portal fantasy worlds.

*Defekt*, IMO, improves on this in a few ways-- I think the IKEA setting is more, featured, here, I think this book retains some nice character moments, and I thought that the first 25%, when we are learning What is Going On with Derek, was a very good part. The interactions with the Special Inv team were sometimes cute and sometimes a little flat- they were very, I think, one-note characters except for Derek. They get to have some nice IKEA maze moments, which mostly are fun and Night-at-the-Museum in tone, but in some fight scenes can get a little confused.

I think that *Defekt* takes a lighter hand with a more sinister tone on some of the Evil Minimum Wage Job stuff-- I liked the aggressive personality tests of the woman from Corporate much more than just like, the "some of you MAY die" attitude of the middle manager in *Finna.* For some reason it just strikes me different to have the company like, "we are providing employee apartments :)" and they're shipping containers. it's very current-era cyberpunk.

In general I'd recommend! It's a cute book, not too deep, but a fun episodic adventure novella.

Thanks to tordotcom, Nino Cipri and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was so, so much fun. Set in the same not-IKEA as the first in the series, we get to know the weirdo colleague that everyone kind of hates. Shit gets messy and tentacly and, eventually, heart warming.

I had so much fun romping around this world and want to strongly recommend it as a short, fun read. It was like singing into a hair brush. Delightful.

I read Finna and this on my lunch breaks at my customer service job. Life saving. This book is for anyone who has been asked dumb questions and also for anyone who has been lost in an IKEA.

Nino Cipri’s Finna introduced us to the bigger-on-the-inside shopping emporium LitenVärld, a store so large that it warps reality into occasionally opening wormholes to other, even stranger versions of the superstore. The adventures continue in Defekt. I’ve been waiting for a sequel ever since I finished Finna; I love Cipri’s imaginative, inclusive, satirical brain. This follow-up is absolutely perfect.

Derek has one ambition. He wants to be the best—friendliest, most productive, most helpful—employee at LitenVärld. Given LitenVärld’s expectations of its employees, this would be a big challenge even for someone who feels the need to practice his facial expressions and intonation in the mirror every morning before he heads to work from the shipping container in the parking lot where he lives. Still, even though some of his co-workers find him a little too sincere for comfort, Derek seems to be succeeding. At least, until Derek feels bad enough to take his first-ever sick day.

The weird things start happening when a refreshed Derek returns to work. A portal has opened up and swallowed a customer and a coworker, on a shift Derek was supposed to be working. Guilt and a heaping dollop of corporate guilt press Derek into being seconded to a special unit that tracks down and exterminates defective products with extreme prejudice. Because this is LitenVärld, defective products are a lot stranger than a table with a dinged corner or a piece of fabric with a flawed print. The defekta of LitenVärld appear to be alive.

Like Finna, the sheer madcap oddness of Defekt provides a lot of entertainment while the subtext introduces questions of what it means to not fit in with everyone else, finding one’s own identity, and how a group of seemingly powerless entities (for lack of a better word) can stand up to a corporate behemoth. I loved every word of this sweet, goofy, original ride of a novella.

I definitely enjoyed this one more than Finna. While the story itself and the concept of clones and discordant products was interesting, the author’s idea of using the clones to talk about the grind of capitalism and how it completely destroys our independent thoughts and desires and any autonomy we feel, was excellent. This novella had humor, heart, an emotional depth and an eclectic cast of characters who were so much fun to follow. The ending was particularly hilarious and hopeful and I thought it was just such a perfect conclusion

I knew from their first book, FINNA, that Cipri was a master at capturing the tone of retail mundanity in the midst of extraordinary happenings, but I was happily surprised to find out that DEFEKT is just as good as the first, if not better! Set in an Ikea-like furniture store that is prone to maskhåls (or wormholes), we meet star employee Derek who excels at 1) customer service, 2) making his coworkers feel uncomfortable with his intense devotion to LitenVarld, and 3) pissing off his manager Tricia when he asks for his first sick day. What follows is a familiar journey of self-discovery; feeling completely alone when you want to fit in yet haven't found 'your people'; we've all heard the story (or even lived it). Cipri, however, takes this familiar narrative and twists it into something so original, so heartbreaking, so utterly hilarious, and as satisfying and warm as sitting on an anthropomorphic sofa (even if that sofa is uncomfortable in social settings). I absolutely love their work and can't wait for more!

This book is so weird, but so good! This takes place in the same LitenVald from Finna and there’s a brief cameo of Jules, but this absolutely works as a standalone. Derek is an exemplar employee of LitenVald, until one day he calls in sick and suddenly he finds himself part of a special inventory team - made up of four other Dereks!

I love what this novella does with self reflection and examination of faults and aspirations. By having Derek interact with these clones-of-a-sort, he’s forced to face possibilities and the things that make him unique. I also love how identical genetic material doesn’t make for identical people. Derek, Dex, Darkness, Dirk, and Dahlilah are all unique people with their own characteristics, desires, and personalities, even if they all came from the same base material.

I really enjoyed this, and just like Finna I easily read it in a single sitting because it’s so intriguing and compelling, even as parts of it are discomforting.

Nino Cipri is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors, especially of short fiction, and their novella Defekt has only further cemented that space. Defekt is set in the same universe as their 2020 novella Finna; the events occur simultaneously and features different characters so it isn’t a sequel, though there are minor plot spoilers for Finna within, so I’d recommend reading it first (plus, it’s fantastic as well).

Defekt follows the journey of Derek, a model employee of Not-Ikea furniture company LitenVärld—for those who read Finna, he is the character whose sick day served as catalyst for the events of that novella. From the jump, there’s something weird and off about Derek’s sick day, and the novella takes very little time at all to introduce us to the primary plot point of the novel: a ‘special’ inventory shift where the team is composed of Derek and four other individuals who bear a startling resemblance to him.

If you’ve ever worked retail or experienced the capitalist grindstone, you’ll find something to relate to in this novella, from the treatment of Derek’s sick day to the dynamics of the team he gets assigned to the special inventory with. In weird, wonderful, horrifying, and precise fashion, Nino Cipri crafts for the reader a journey of self-discovery and the perils of being a cog in the machine. Given Cipri’s other publications, I wasn’t surprised by the inclusion of transgender and nonbinary side characters, but I was delighted; between this and another development I will redact due to spoilers, it’s safe to say this can be considered an LGBTQIA+ work.

I can’t recommend this novella and it’s predecessor, Finna, enough. Both stories take all too relatable scenarios and three dimensional characters and inject them with the perfect amount of surrealism and horror. Defekt in particular will speak to anyone who has come to the stark realization the job they’ve devoted their life to may not care about them at all, and it explores the aftermath of that realization beautifully.

Thank you to Tor.com and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Y’all this was so much fun.

I wasn’t sure I was going to love it as much as I loved FINNA, because one of the things I liked so much about FINNA was how it was perfectly normal until it wasnt, and this one started out on a distinctly weird note that had me iffy until I remembered this is a direct sequel, you already know about the weird shit, why not embrace it from the get go?
And embrace its weirdness it did and I loved it for that. I didn’t know I could have so many emotions about not-quite clones and a pig shaped toy box wrapped up in a delightful commentary about individuality.

I also cried laughing so hard at a toilet doing TikTok dances, so there you go.

I loved Finna so much last year so I was excited for the opportunity to read and review this companion novella. While this is technically the sequel to Finna, this could be read first or as a standalone since it is more of a loose follow up novella set at the same store.

This novella takes a different scifi spin on Scandinavian furniture store with a focus on clones. I really enjoyed the interactions between the various copies of Derek. There was a lot of humour this story, which made for a lighthearted and entertaining read. I might have liked Finna slightly more because the narrative had a serious tone, but this was still a worthy follow up.

I liked that the chapters were structured around an employee handbook. Like the first book, this one does a fantastic job of providing funny commentary on retail employment.

Needless to say, if you loved Finna as much I did then you will definitely want to read this one. If you have not read Finna then you should go do that and then also read this one.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Tor.com.

Nino Cipri's follow up to FINNA is a delightful spiritual sequel that can still stand on its own while still calling back to some of the best things about its predecessor. You really don't need to have read FINNA to enjoy this novel, but it was fun to return to this world after reading Cipri's debut. Defekt tackles the horrors of late-stage capitalism, clone ethics, identity politics, and the power of human connection all in a neat 144 pages. Oh, and did I mention that it's uproariously funny, too?

Defekt follows Derek, a minor character from FINNA and a highly enthusiastic employee of the insidious LitenVärld home furnishing company (think an evil IKEA) that is normal store that just happens to have wormholes to parallel universes occasionally breaking through. Through these come a variety of sentient, otherworldly pieces of furniture. When Derek accidentally stumbles upon one of these creatures, he inadvertently finds himself reassigned to an inventory division made up of none other than a crack-team of alternate universe Dereks assigned to find and exterminate these anomalies.

Derek himself if a wonderful, if self-depreciating narrator, who's journey to create an identify for himself beyond the company line becomes (literally) a reflective experience, as he learns more about himself through the lives and voices of the people he could have been. Each of the Derek's has a unique identity and Cipri has taken care to give each of them their own personality while emphasizing the underlying threads that bind them as one. The tension between what is comforting and safe versus what is right is beautifully explored, as is the difficulty of accepting change as a positive experience. Overall this was a charming novel and a humorous take on the horrors of retail management.

I didn't love Finna, though I liked it; it felt it leaned a bit too much on being angry about soul-sucking capitalism (which, same, but the choir can get tired of being preached to). Defekt is set in the same world, and briefly crosses over with Finna (we see Jules right before the events of that book), but for whatever reason it worked a bit better for me -- it felt a little less preachy, and I loved the idea of all those sentient furnishings. The toilet is a highlight (seriously).

I was a little bit put off by the "self-cest" thing, though: Derek is the main character, and after he takes an uncharacteristic sick day, he has to do a special inventory shift. During the shift, he meets four of his clones, and finds himself particularly drawn to one of them. Sure, that one is quite different to him in many ways, but the potential romance between them was a bit of an odd note for me.

Still, a fun novella, and I suspect those who already enjoyed Finna will enjoy this at least as much.

Nino Cipri once again explores the horrors of capitalism and the retail experience with the follow up to Finna and I feel like this book is witnessing my experiences in ways nothing else can.

This time around we follow Derek, the dedicated LitenVärld employee whose sick day kicked off the previous story. Once he returns from his day off, he's asked to take part in an overnight inventory shift. What he doesn't realize is that his team is actually made up of other Dereks, and inventory means eliminating defective products that are more than happy to eat anybody that crosses their path.

Fantastic characters, a wild universe of outrageous creatures, and an all too truthful look at the real motivations of capitalism they try to hide make this an absolute joy. If you've worked in retail, you'll feel the pain of every interaction and long shift Derek goes through. If you've ever managed to be on the receiving end of some kind of disciplinary action, you're really going to sympathize with Derek.

His struggle with his love for the company and the growing realization that the feeling is not mutual is too real. He just wants a place to be welcomed into, and it might be in a room filled with himself where he finds it. It's a fantastic look at how we can find a way to embrace the varying aspects of our personality, make choices when we feel we have none, and truly make a way forward in our lives. It's also an hilarious and moving look at the retail world.

Defekt follows an employee trying to keep doing his best as his world cracks and gets stranger despite his efforts to fit in and follow the manual. I love the chapter openers from the employee manual. The overly cheery corporate-speak helps to establish the tone of the book, especially when the MC is very familiar with this document (or with others like it). It’s informing the world and the characters’ inner lives at the same time, and it’s very funny on top of all that. The MC is in the perfect middle zone between technically being an unreliable narrator and also never actually lying to the reader (and not trying to either). The book is so observant and the MC is so clueless, and it was so wonderful to view this strange hyper-corporate world through the eyes of someone who loves it because it's the only thing they know. The secondary characters were great counterpoints to the MC's perspective while also feeling like full people separate from his conception of them, it's great world-building (especially for such a short story).

This is a sequel to FINNA (and contains a minor spoiler for it), but DEFEKT can completely stand alone. I'll do my normal sequel check but some of the answers might feel wonky because the author has said FINNA was intended to be stand-alone (and therefore wasn't trying to leave hanging threads for a sequel to grab on to). This doesn't wrap up anything left hanging from the previous book, but it does temporally situate the books in relation to each other very succinctly and I appreciated that touch. The whole story starts in this book and wasn't present in the first one, and it is its own story in a connected universe. I don't think it left anything in particular for additional sequels to pick up, but I would be very interested in more stories based in this location, especially given how DEFEKT ends. While I don't think anything was left open on purpose, the world is open enough to give room for more stories told here while being specific enough to be interesting. The MC is different from the first book and his voice feels distinct from the previous book's MC. Finally, this would absolutely make sense if you hadn't read the first one, but, again, it does open with a minor spoiler from FINNA so I do recommend reading FINNA first if you're planning on eventually having read both books.

CW for bullying, transphobia (minor), blood, violence, death.