"There were always monsters in the heart of mazes...but this maze was on Derek's side."
We can only thank 2020 for bringing us once again inside the world of Litenvarld. We are met with its most dazzling employee, Derek. His life revolves around Litenvarld. From waking up in its parking lot inside a Litenvarld shipping container, hyping himself up using the company's mottos and greetings, to never calling out sick...not even once. Being the most reliable and eager employee never made him any friends, instead they mostly steered clear of him. Derek is just happy making his superiors, especially Trisha, happy and chugging along in his little routine just fitting into the mold he has made of himself.
This book takes place the same day as its predecessor, Finna. Even with a little cameo from Jules who is one of the main protagonists in the first novel. Derek is talked into calling out after coughing up blood and missed the entire multiverse wormhole that opened up where a customer wandered into, and where Jules and Ava's story took place. Derek returns to work, learns of the wormhole and is immediately called into Trisha's office to have a meeting with the higher ups where he is asked a slew of uncomfortable questions and scenarios...leading him to being placed on special overnight inventory where he runs into some familiar faces. The duty of the special inventory team is to locate and destroy all defective, defekta, inventory in the store. Hijinks ensure and Derek finally breaks his mold and finds himself and friends who accept him just the way he is.
Saying this is captivating from the moment it opens is underselling the book. Derek from the beginning is a loveable character, we've all known at least one Derek in our professinoal lives, and how their enthusiasm for work and the workplace is unmatched. When we learned about the alternate universe Dereks it made me think of the Bad Batch in Star Wars. Where they're all meant to be the same person but have their own personality, experiences, and particular skills that make them inherently unique. The romance between Darkness and Derek furthers the point of them being completely separate individuals and unique. It was an extremely natural progression of romance and lovely.
Derek's "defect" that allowed him to speak and understand the defekta is the best plot twist one could ever ask for. The realization that these items are just misunderstood and scared is what the team needed to overthrow the tyranny they've been put under. The team needed Derek to complete and compliment them, he allowed them to change the mentality and handling of the precious cargo in the stores. Also, shoutout to the piggy crab toy chest, it has my entire heart and I'd adopt one in a heartbeat. This entire universe is incredible, and I wish there was more expansion of it even in an anthology of short stories for updates on the adventures of our protagonists.
"Toy chests with pincers and eye stalks, ambulatory sleeper sofas, killer mutant toilets, that kind of thing. Helping him is the inventory team-four strangers who look and sound almost exactly like him. Are five Dereks better than one?"
Just want to say the acknowledgments at the end are just as wonderful as the book itself and made me smile the entire time reading it!
"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."
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