The Cleaner by Brandi Wells took me a little while to get into. The main character does not have a name and she gives nicknames to the other characters in the book which frustrated me because I like to know the real names of people, not just nicknames. I think I had a bit of a hard time getting into the book because of this!

The unnamed clear combs through the office every evening, cleaning up after the employees. She knows everything about these people through her nighttime snooping. She discovers a secret and decides to take matters into her own hands.

The plot:

Every night, she cleans. On the fourth floor of an unnamed office in an unnamed city, the night cleaner comes and does what she does best—sorts out the messes of the daytime employees. None of them know her, but she knows everything about them: Sad Intern’s dreams to get promoted, Résumé Woman’s nasty flight-risk behavior, Mr. Buff’s secret smoking habit (not very conducive to his fitness journey).

She’s the office mastermind, the one everyone needs, and no one even knows she exists. And tonight, while scrolling through your emails, she’ll discover the secret you’ve been hiding—the one that will put everyone’s job at risk.

After all, protecting the employees is her responsibility: whether it’s from rats and window smudges or from the sinister CEO who may be driving the company into ruin. And you’re about to find out that, sometimes, your most powerful enemy is the one you don’t even see.

This one was definitely different and I don’t even know how I feel about it! Coming out on January 30.

Pretty good story with an interesting and entertaining MC. I see a mixed bag of reviews, so it's hard to say if you'll like this one, but there's probably a good chance you will.

Thanks very much for the free copy for review!!

This author skillfully crafts a narrative that revolves around the enigmatic cleaner, a woman desperate for connection in a place where she remains an invisible figure. Every night, she meticulously unravels the mess left behind by the office's daytime inhabitants, who remain oblivious to her existence. The characters, like Sad Intern, Résumé Woman, and Mr. Buff, are vividly portrayed through the Night Cleaner's watchful eyes, revealing their dreams, behaviors, and even hidden vices.

The novel cleverly employs the mundane act of cleaning as a metaphor for uncovering hidden truths. As the Night Cleaner scrolls through emails, a riveting discovery is made—one that threatens the very fabric of the employees' lives and livelihoods. The tension builds, and the story evolves into a psychological thriller as the night cleaner becomes an unexpected mastermind, holding the power to expose the sins and secrets that could jeopardize the entire office.

The exploration of the Cleaner's dual role, both protector and potential threat, adds depth to the narrative. The story forces readers to confront the idea that sometimes the most formidable adversary is the one lurking in the shadows, unseen and underestimated. The suspenseful twists and turns keep us on the edge of our seats, eagerly awaiting the revelation of the sinister CEO's true motives and the consequences of the Cleaner's newfound knowledge.

This is a captivating and thought-provoking exploration of power dynamics, hidden truths, and the consequences of remaining invisible in a world driven by secrets. This novel proves that within the mundane routines of an office, there may be a powerful force capable of reshaping the lives of those who fail to acknowledge its existence. A must read.

I DNFed this one at 50%. I liked the tone and the premise, but the execution didn’t work for me.

This is the story of an unnamed night cleaner of an office building. She’s very observant of the workers’ desk spaces (snooping as well) and comes up with ideas of who they are and what they need. She sees herself as someone who subtly but significantly assists them through her cleaning but also through tweaks of their space. She’s a loner, judgmental but distantly motherly.

I found the voice of the cleaner very entertaining. Her comments and observations often made me laugh. I love a petty, unlikeable narrator. She reminded me of Annie of King’s Misery and the narrator in Death in Her Hands.

What didn’t work for me and ultimately caused my DNF was the meandering, unfocused plot, such as it was. I can enjoy a plotless novel, but this didn’t work for me. I think it lacked an intensity that would make the stakes feel higher. Instead it was pretty repetitive. It also had quite a few unrelated threads to follow, and I think it needed to trim those down. I could see this working better as a short story or novella than a full length novel. I think I could have liked a version that took place over one night and just focused on her theories about all the workers based on their desks. Like a strange redo of The Things They Carried.

I did really enjoy the writing, so I’d try more from Brandi Wells in the future. And if plotless works for you, you may have more success with this one!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book was so unique and interesting to read. I was completly consumed by the writing style and the story. What a fantastic read! 5 stars!

Loved this plot, loved the twist, loooooved the way it was written. I felt like I knew all the characters and I was apart of the story! I wasnt able to move until i finished this book! I will def read more by Wells.

I picked this book up at the recommendation of author Sarah Rose Etter when she discussed her book Ripe, one of my faves of last year, on the Reading the Room podcast! I totally see the similarities between the two books vibe-wise, but sadly I didn't enjoy this one as much as I expected to.

The Cleaner follows an unnamed cleaner who works the overnight shift in an office building. As she cleans, she gives the daytime office workers nicknames and personas in her head based on the status of their desks, dreams up convoluted fantasies about their daily lives, and more or less plays god while she convinces herself she's singlehandedly keeping the company afloat. The mental gymnastics and unraveling she goes through during every shift is genuinely funny to watch- she'll go through people's drawers, shred their paperwork on a whim if she's mad at them, mix people's supplements/protein powder with laxatives, or even leave them little treats if she likes them. As the reader, you even start to buy into these fictions after a while because you're more or less trapped inside the main character's head. She's very delulu and it's very fun.

I also really enjoyed the conversation surrounding work as identity that happened towards the end of the book. Especially living under the hellscape of late-stage capitalism, it's easy to let your job dictate your life and become so intertwined with your entire identity. (Yet other people can somehow just naturally separate themselves from what they do for a living like it's nothing? What's that like?) This got me thinking a lot about the similar themes in the book Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, and these books would pair nicely together in my opinion!

However, around the halfway point of the novel, things started to get pretty repetitive, and I kept waiting for things to pick up. The story does end up reaching a satisfying ending, but I wish it were a little more engaging along the way rather than just the same thing over and over.

Also, I found it hard to grasp the passage of time in this book- this could definitely just be a PDF formatting issue since I read a digital ARC, but even on the sentence level I kept getting confused as to where scenes started and ended. This could have been an intentional device and a fun way to play with structure- one could argue that an overnight cleaning job could make time blur together with its repetitive and isolating nature- but at the same time it was a little frustrating either way because I wasn't ever sure if this was intentional or not.

Overall, I enjoyed the themes and the premise of this book, but the novelty wore off after a while which made things fall a little bit flat. I would definitely read from this author again in the future though!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced reader's copy of The Cleaner in exchange for an honest review. This book will be out on January 30th 2024!

I was really intrigued from the beginning. It had an interesting premise. I was excited about it. But then I get to 50% and it still wasnt escalating. I kept waiting and waiting and by the end of the book still wasn’t all that thrilled.

I know a lot of people liked the characters weren’t named, but I found it frustrating personally. Along with there being no set chapters. (Unless this is something being edited once published)

It just wasn’t my vibe. The ending didn’t suffice for me. I wish I liked it more than I did but I just really didn’t enjoy how dragged out the majority of the book was.

The cleaner is way too nosey and in people’s business. Trying to figure out their lives. And set up 2 people they don’t know. Hacking into their computers. She’s just weird. And it was just a weird vibe that unfortunately I just did not enjoy.

Three reasons I loved this book -

1) One of the most accurate depictions of time that I've ever read. It really nails the days running together feeling of work in that it reads like one long endless shift. There's not a clear beginning/end to each day. Instead, you know it's a new day when the cleaner's routine repeats itself. If she's cleaning the bathroom again, you can assume it's a new day because you remember her cleaning it yesterday.

2) Feels like a really unique version of people watching. The Cleaner works nights and has never met the day staff. She uses what they leave behind - trash, desktop items, breakroom signage etc to build a picture of each person she cleans up after. No one in this book has a name. Characters are identified by initials or traits that are meaningful to The Cleaner. Sad Intern, Sticky Doorknobs, Yarn Guy. And yet they all just come so vividly to life. You really can tell a lot about a person by how they treat their breakroom leftovers.

3) We're never told what the office/company does, and not knowing doesn't matter to the story. There's a generic sense of "projects" and "numbers" and "layoffs" with v. little details. That maybe sounds weird or boring but, to me, not knowing those things provided interesting commentary on the meaningfulness of work. It also allowed for comparisons of tangible work like cleaning, vs. these mystery cubicle/spreadsheet jobs, that are often higher paid but more difficult to explain and justify in purpose.

Overall, just a really observant, different, and fascinating experience.

Good, quick mystery that was fun to read. The MC is so completely unlikeable and I liked that you never really have to root for her.

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc!
This book was good!! Until the end… I was very intrigued and this kept my interest the whole story! I was loving it! It was keeping a face pace, the characters were interesting and learning the about them all from the perspective of the cleaner was fun! Unfortunately, the way it ended so abruptly was a downer. I have so many questions. Why was the cleaner the way she was? Did she end up going out with the delivery guy? What happened to the intern? Was she the one having the affair with the ceo? Why is she leaving the job? Why did her ex boyfriend leave? Sooo many questions that were left open with the abrupt ending. I loved it up until then. I still am rating a 3 star as I did really enjoy it, the ending just leaves a lot to be desired.

It's a thankless job, but someone's gotta do it!- Just hope your cleaner is not so dedicated in her efforts! Psychological suspense about a fantasist cleaner who takes her devotion to the company a little too far. I chuckled my whole way through this book, and I enjoyed joining her in her delusions for a little bit. 4 stars

The Cleaner by Brandi Wells

When I was in Junior High School, I worked part-time for a cleaning company that cleaned office buildings – they were my neighbors so it was cash and I didn’t have to drive. We would pile in a van and in the evenings and on weekends, I emptied trash, scrubbed toilets and sinks, vacuumed, dusted ... So, this story felt a little personal to me.

Cleaning around people’s desks – where they spend at least 8 hours a day - without actually ever knowing the people is peculiar. Once, I saw that an office worker had artwork up from their kid. It was a really cool geometric design. I went home and kind of adopted this design as my own. I still doodle it to this day.

I digress … this novel is odd yet I kind of got it even though the main character – they that shan’t be named - is probably a sociopath. The very fact that they incorporated themselves into the lives of others and were so unseen, I don’t know, it just felt powerful and sad, all at the same time.

My thanks to HTP/Hanover Square Press for this gifted copy!

This book is like nothing I ever read before. I'm going to be honest, it was kind of weird and I kind of didn't like the Cleaner for some of the things that were done...but I sort of enjoyed the book? Not in a "I like this so much" but a "I can't look away" kind of like. Does that make sense? It's intriguing, but I could only handle it in small doses.

As a reader you are getting the perspective of the unknown Cleaner, who sees herself as this benevolent, almost care-taking person to the people who work in the office during the day. She just makes these assumptions about everyone and in her mind it's true, but as the observer I wasn't so sure. And I think that's part of the point. You're almost like an omniscient being who can see where she's coming from, but doubt things are exactly how she takes them...I am hurting my own head trying to explain how this book made me feel...

Right off the bat I was kind of cringing because she goes into people's desks and takes things and purposely tampers with people's personal property, but she's doing it because she believes she is running some helpful interference? Kind of a mother's "this is for your own good" type thing. But you know...theft and hosing down cigarettes' with cleaning product, which could potentially really harm someone, for example...eek. Some of the things she did made me cringe. That said, I did keep coming back to the book because it was just...intriguing in a slightly disturbing way.

As someone who often worked late enough to end up visiting with our retired custodian, I don't have to wonder what she thought of my desk because she told me "horribly overwhelmed by your work load and under appreciated no doubt." Thank H. You are still right with your assessment. lol But when I look at my desk I think...people must think I lack organizational skills. lol

Anyhow, I would say this book is something anyone looking for something a little...different. I read this for the same reason I once read a book written from the perspective of three cows, okay. It was weird and I felt compelled. lol I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. I was more...fascinated by the odd outlook and take of this book. And I might have been wondering what this woman was going to do next.

I liked the perspective of this book very much and realizing how our work and personal lives must seem to those who are in charge of tidying up at a place of business. It makes you really think about the things you leave behind. I wasn't a big fan of the characters really but did like that this book made me think and I was entertained with what was happening at this office.

This novel is quite a journey into the delusional mind of an office cleaner, whose work cleaning an office at night is her entire life. She perpetuates one audacious outrage after another against her employer and invisible colleagues (whom she imagines she knows based on the contents of their drawers and computers), but I fail to see how the novel qualifies as a mystery-thriller. The cleaner has more power than anyone can imagine and uses it to incrementally transform the company. The story seemed to be building up to an explosive ending in which the unnamed protagonist does something to cap off all of the little outrages, thefts, sabotages, etc., but then it sort of just. . . ended.

The idea that someone whom you never see could easily do all these things to you is chilling indeed.

No one who reads this novel will ever leave their work computer password out in plain sight again.

No one ever notices her. She’s invisible, she blends in to the background. She’s the office cleaner, and every night she comes in and picks up the pieces of other peoples lives. She knows all about them, from their dreams of promotion to some of the most secret parts of their personal lives. How can it be that a person that’s never even noticed can be the same person to take you down?