Interesting take on the life of an office cleaner, exactly what do they get up to when the day staff leave the office? Funny and sad in equal measures a real insight on human behaviour. and what other people might think of us. Corporate in the day and humanity at night, all the little secrets.The cleaner herself most would say needs a life, but she has one already, her work is her life. Thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook to review.

I thought this was going to be strange and whimsical, a bit of a cross between Fleabag and Starstruck, but instead it was quite dark at times and quietly unsettling. The unnamed cleaner forms parasocial relationships with the people who work in the office during the day time, inventing personalities and hobbies for them and interfering in their daily tasks. (Moving things around, binning important documents, and hacking in their computers.) If she perceives a slight from one of them, she punishes them by not cleaning their workstations properly, or making them dirtier (putting mayo on the back of one worker's desk drawers).

The first half of this was slow and a little repetitive, but I can see how it worked to build a picture of the Cleaner's routines and her view of the various office characters. Some of the descriptions of the things she has to clean are pretty grim (and gave me the ick), but I should have probably expected that from a novel about cleaning.

In the second half of the novel we see the cleaner discovering a secret about the CEO and trying to use it to help someone close to him. There was so much build up to the reveal of the secret that I thought it was going to be dramatic and damaging. Instead, it falls pretty flat. (I was expecting something dark and atrocious and instead if was pretty run-of-the-mill.) Having said this, the curveball in the final few chapters was pretty good as we get to see the cleaner's expectations of everyone around her turned upside down. This is a good character study on the people in "invisible roles", but I think it had the potential to be a lot more and would have been a different novel with more satirical humour.

Such a weird little book and I wasn’t too sure what to make of it. It was in some ways fascinating to see the narrator make such grand assumptions about the people working in the office she cleaned based on what was on their desks and even in their emails (yes, their emails!) but it was also very cringey because she was completely obsessed and it’s clear that she knows nothing about them and they’re probably nothing like she thinks but she’s made them her whole world. The whole thing is very unsettling but it’s meant to be, so if that’s your jam then this might be the book for you but if you don’t like a narrator that’s slightly (very) unhinged then this probably isn’t the book for you. The narrator lives in her own perceptions of the office around her and is incredibly meddlesome, feeling as though she’s completely responsible for the people who work in the office she cleans overnight and whilst we see her somewhat normal interactions with some other characters, her inner thoughts are clearly problematic and downright strange. An interesting character but definitely an unsettling one.

I received a free copy of this book. All views are my own.

I think I was hoping for something more along the lines of The Maid so this was a rather disappointing listen. The narrator did well with what was a fairly dull story.

This is a very confusing book to read. The first half was very mundane, describing The Cleaner's shifts at work. They have no name, and nothing in the book to describe them - to show their invisibility in the office they work in. The second half was much more interesting when she messed about with the lives of the people who work for the company and trys to solve their problems, all under the cover of her night shift. The narrator of the audiobook was very good. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for a review copy

I am so sorry but this book was obviously not meant for me; I just found it negative and depressing. I had the audio version, thank you Netgalley, and it was well narrated and it was an interesting insight but left me feeling like I didn't want to continue although I did make it to halfway through. Sorry.

Ah this is a bit disappointing, really wanted to like this more!
Nothing overtly wrong except it was a bit meh?
I think it was interesting commentary on capitalist work culture, amusing in parts and I will definitely be making sure to keep my desk tidy!

Thank you to NetGalley and Wildfire.
3/5 ⭐️

Ooooh this was good! I love the claustrophobic style of the narrator - made you really question the line between madness and sanity. Recommended

A easy and fast read that is a really interesting social commentary exploring seen and hidden people in capitalist hierarchies.

Review for audiobook.

For half this book I was mildly outraged at the behaviour of our character, the way she built lives for people, and interfered, going by herr idea of what's for the best.

The other half I felt sorry for her.
That these people she didn't know were her life.
Amusing at times irritating at others, I got to the end, and decided I probably didn't ever need to get myself a cleaner.

I enjoyed this - an interesting main character who does some quite bizarre things, always with the best intentions. She had a very interesting personality and made for an entertaining read! I loved all the nicknames she had for the office staff! The narration was good and each character was distinct and clear. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers.

I could not have had a more brilliant experience in my foray into the audiobook world! This story was incredible in so many ways - the main character was realistic and hilarious; doing an insane amount of terrible things for good reasons and genuinely believing herself to be in the right, the secondary characters were well developed and fleshed out throughout the story: each with their own aspirations and personalities, and the overall plot was equal parts an intriguing mystery and a lighthearted scheme. I finished this book in one day because I was so hooked, and the narrator did a truly wonderful job of capturing the voices and essence of each character! Definitely a book I’ll be recommending to everyone who’ll listen, and especially to those who, like the office workers in this story, see cleaning staff as invisible people!

"That's how most of these people know each other. It's all very surface level: faces and names. Not much else. It must be an empty way to live, to be so vapid and forever unknown. But of course, I know them all. I understand them, for better or worse."

The Cleaner is a subversive, speculative commentary on human connections and corporate culture that both engrosses and alienates it’s reader at the same time. It’s full of irreverent, dry humour and uncomfortably strange prose that just gives it such character and charm.

Our faceless, nameless narrator speaks right to us in a crude, blunt voice — a voyeur that we watch as they watch others. This singular narrator has a strange quality, with limited interaction with others and just one location — just a single moving strand of thoughts that move fluidly from one moment to the next. Their personality remains largely a mystery to us, only ever seeing what they want us to see. It’s isolating and eerie, especially as the mystery starts to take hold of the story and the uneasy tensions almost feels like they are really holding into our own secrets.

For the first half of the book, it’s almost plotless, a repetitive cycle of night shifts and subtle observations — something that usually would bore me with its slow, quiet pace but was actually quite charming. And when it picks up, it remains quiet and calm but with an added intensity and feverishness as our narrator finds more secrets, more problems to fix under the cover of night.

This wickedly clever story makes you wonder; how many people do you know, do you think about — but in return you’re a stranger, a faceless nameless figure especially in a hyper-connected world? And how much of your personality, of yourself, has been borrowed or stolen from the people you’ve known?

The narration was brilliant; clear and concise, easy to listen to but definitely capturing that strange, uncomfortable and quirky vibe that makes the character come to life.

A delightfully strange and deeply unsettling read - if you don't absolutely love this, at least it'll make you think about checking your passwords aren't left on your computer monitor.