Review: Safety in Numbers

Safety in Numbers by Sophie Penhaligon
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 42%.

Seraphina Ellis received a traumatic brain injury in a car accident which has made interactions with others difficult. Faced with spontaneous choices she panics and so her life has become highly regimented with a daily meal plan, clothing selections and set routines for every part of daily life. her stilted speech and social awkwardness mean that despite her brilliance as a mathematician she has a lowly cubicle job in a tech firm.

Milo Grant is a billionaire CEO of the tech company where Seraphina works, young, handsome and good-looking of course he comes with a bad personality, sacking assistants regularly and shouting/swearing at people.

Seraphina originally interviewed for the role as Milo's assistant but failed the interview. Having seen how Milo bit the head off of the HR woman when she tried to introduce them Seraphina is sort of glad she didn't get the job, even if the alternative is that she has an unfulfilling job and no friends. She even meets him in a lift one day on the way to her cubicle and he makes an unkind joke at her expense.

After firing yet another assistant Milo decides to get the head of HR to trawl their employees qualifications to find someone who can handle the work - surprise, surprise it is the mousey woman from the lift. When she starts work it turns out she is perfect for the role, far better than Milo could ever imagine and he finds the time he spends in the lab with her the best parts of his day.

All this sounds great right? STEM heroine meets flawed billionaire yadda, yadda, yadda.

Sadly, the execution was lacking. First, I got the distinct impression that this had been written as a serial because things were repeated. For example, Milo uses escort agencies because he got his heart crushed and he likes his romance transactional (what a charmer!). The reader gets told this more than once, I'm like I know he's a sleazebag you don't have to repeat it. Similarly, we hear about the girl in the next cubicle to Seraphina who reads out bits from gossip rags more than once as if this is news.

Second, Milo is rude to his employees and thinks that's okay, similarly Seraphina is very scathing about her fellow cubicle drones, who all made an effort to befriend her but she gave them the hard shoulder and speaks ill of them behind their backs (in her head but it totally counts.

Third and finally, the book feels as though it is almost entirely written as interior monologue of Milo and Seraphina, first he thinks about something, then she thinks about something. There's a lot of unnecessary descriptions of her hair and his hair etc, etc.

Overall, I began to dislike both characters so I decided to stop reading.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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