Customer Reviews

Anonymous Lawyer: a Novel

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is really funny & so true!! Blachman captures all of the ridiculous aspects of firm life that my lawyer friends always complain about. As a law student myself, I hope it's not *exactly* like that to work at a firm, but from everything I've heard, Blachman's parody is right on. I can see why he chose to be a writer instead of an attorney! Definitely good summer reading.

I've been a fan of the anonymous lawyer blog for quite some time now. I picked up this book this morning on my way to work (yes, I've been anticipating the release). I've skimmed through the book and read the first quarter of it so far, and I'm happy to say that Jeremy Blachman appears to have superbly evolved his writing without losing the humorous, engaging technique that has made the Anonymous Lawyer blog such a hit. The satire that seeps through everything in Anonymous Lawyer makes this book a delightful read. The blog format of the book, while it is unconventional, also works well here. Even non-lawyers/law students will enjoy this book!

I'm not a lawyer, but I know more than a few, and this is the most hilarious take on law firm life I've ever encountered. I haven't laughed this hard since I read Confederacy of Dunces -- which was the last time everyone on the Metro turned to stare at the loud, uncontrollable giggling.

Anonymous Lawyer is laugh-out-loud funny and it perfectly captures everything my lawyer friends have told me about law firm life. It's also the first major novel written in the form of a blog. This book could really take off and become a huge phenomenon.

I've never written a review on Amazon before, but I just had to let everyone know how amazing Blachman's Anonymous Lawyer really is. A good friend of mine said I just had to read it. Well, let's just say that I'm sure you will find Anonymous Lawyer worth the read. Blachman has a real talent for writing -- he grabs hold of you right from the start and then makes you laugh and smile throughout the whole book.

I can't wait to read his next one!

This is one of the funniest books I've read this year. Sure, the whole "partner-who-wants-to-be-chairman" storyline of the book was a good one--but what kept me glued to the pages of ANONYMOUS LAWYER for four straight hours was the fact that I couldn't stop laughing.

Two paralegals chatting incessantly? Easy solution--punch one of the them in the face. Anonymous Daughter getting fat? Easy enough to solve--let Anonymous Wife take her in for liposuction. My favorite scene from the entire book, though, has to be this one:

"We had a student (intern) last summer who kept kosher. Or at least that's what she said. But anytime she got offered lunch at someplace exceptional, suddenly she wasn't kosher anymore. You asked her to go to a cheap Indian place down the street, oh, she can't, she's kosher. But if you wanted to drive up the coast for a long lunch at Nobu in Malibu, perfect, she'd eat anything. She'd eat raw shrimp wrapped in bacon with a glass of milk, off the naked stomach of a Palestinian, on Yom Kippur, if you told her it was expensive."

And it's lines like that that make the fictional blog of Anonymous Lawyer at the heart of the story both funny, realistic, sarcastic, and brutally honest. Oh, and the fact that the author, Jeremy Blachman, really does write the anonymous lawyer blog (anonymouslawyer dot blogspot dot com).

Wonderful read!

If Seinfeld worked at a law firm, he would probably write this book! It was really creative and clever, and even my middle-aged friends are addicted to the Anonymous Lawyer blog. I hope Blachman keeps writing books!

Jeremy Blachman has spun a wickedly funny and outrageous story about life in a prominent Los Angeles corporate law firm. The boss in The Devil Wears Prada has nothing on our narrator, the Anonymous Lawyer, who serves as the hiring partner at his firm and has his sights firmly set on the Chairman position within the next decade. The reader gets an inside look at the motivations and desires of this evil partner, a man who despises his Anonymous Wife and her shopping habits, who disdains any lawyer who has more than the one allotted "outside interest," and who values profitability and career success above all else.

Blachman's shtick, which triumphs wildly, architects the novel a series of weblog entries by the Anonymous Lawyer. He sets up his blog with the help of Anonymous Niece, a college senior currently applying to law schools. The two share an email exchange about the blog content and fan mail.

The action takes place over a summer at the firm. Anonymous Lawyer, as hiring partner, manages the summer intern program (well, not in day-to-day aspects--there is a lower-paid nanny-type for that stuff). He's obsessed with his cubicle size in relation to that of other partners with a similar tenure, and his eventual goal is to smite The Jerk, who he views as the only real obstacle to his rise to the position of Chairman of the firm. He categorizes the interns and his co-workers as The Suck-Up, The Musician, The One Who Dresses Like A Slut, The One Who Missed Her Kid's Funeral, Foreign Guy, Black Guy, Harvard Guy, and so on. (This is a highly effective character naming technique--no crib sheet of character descriptions required!)

Blachman has written a fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable modern satire. I laughed out loud both with and at Anonymous Lawyer. The book is certainly fun for anyone in the legal world, but Anonymous Lawyer's obsession with his co-workers and office politics render the action familiar to any cubicle-dweller.

I thought Anonymous Lawyer was really entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny. I recommend it if you're looking for a great summer book for you or a friend. Also, you don't have to know anything about the life of a lawyer or a law student to get the humor (I'm neither). I look forward to Jeremy Blachman's next book!

Anonymous Lawyer by Jeremy Blachman is a truly 21st century book that is stylistically unique. The hiring partner in a prestigious law firm sets up his own weblog, or blog--a form of Internet diary--to vent his workplace frustrations. The book is written in the form of the blog itself. It is interspersed with emails between Anonymous Lawyer and his niece, a law school student, and also between Anonymous Lawyer and various readers of the blog.

Under cover of anonymity, and using nicknames for his workmates (The Jerk, The Harvard Guy, The Suck-Up and so on), as well as disguising place names and minor details, he gives a blow-by-blow account of the intrigues, infighting, cynical manipulation, and power struggles within the firm. As time passes the website becomes ever more popular. Emails pour in from lawyers and associates who identify with Anonymous Lawyers accounts, and from those who think that they know who he is and which firm he is writing about.

Anonymous Lawyer becomes increasingly nervous about being identified, and confides his fears in emails to Anonymous Niece. Simultaneously he is becoming more deeply involved in a bitter power struggle with the new chairman of the firm. Finally his anonymity is penetrated by one of his colleagues, who also offers to help him in his political manueverings--at a price. The situation eventually explodes.

This is a book that is extraordinarily clever in its execution. It is a real page-turner, with both suspense and hilarious humor. It captures in a powerful way some of the unique social aspects of the information age, such as the `globalisation' of private life and personal trivia through Internet weblogs. The all-pervasiveness of email is wonderfully captured in particular. For example: the boss having a heart attack `live' on email, or the ridiculous `there'll be an email, but I'm calling around to tell you first, as a courtesy.'

Anonymous Lawyer is a refreshing read.

Armchair Interviews says: A genuinely funny and unique book.