Four recent graduates travel to France for the grape harvest, but things don’t go to plan at all and they find themselves working at an industrial chicken farm…

This was good, if a bit mental, though I have gotten more from it on reflection than whilst reading it. Perhaps because my main impression (hopefully wrong) whilst reading was that the author thought pretty highly of himself (preening is the word that comes to mind), and that was a little off-putting.

Anyway, I guess the joke is kind of on me since there was rather more going on in this short book than I initially realised. Of course, there’s the obvious commentary on capitalism, industrial farming and consumers’ divorce from the reality of what that actually looks like. But there’s also a lot in there about agency work, who works those jobs and the internal hierarchy, the psychological impact, the impunity of those at the top, class divides and a little bit around immigration and the French flavour of insidious racism. It’s all cleverly woven together into a story which slowly escalates and becomes increasingly bonkers as the characters’ plan falls apart and they steadily lose it.

Worth noting that Munir does not gloss over any of the horrors of the industrial chicken farm - you know best if you can tolerate reading that or not.

A slightly bonkers story of precarious employment, capitalism and the horrifying realities behind consumerism, clever but with a self-satisfied vibe to the writing.