Suzanne Perez

Marissa's middle-aged parents call once a week, even though they have nothing to say.

And her friend Elena jokes that she's had so much work done, she's filled with plastic.

I'm the Atlantic Ocean, she says.

By the time Marissa is forced to face her worst corporate nightmare, an overnight team-building retreat, we tag along with morbid fascination to an isolated forest outside Madrid.

That's where we can only assume the company paintball battle will not end well.

Surrounded by overzealous bosses and co-workers, not to mention an excess of drugs, Marissa's carefully crafted office persona threatens to come undone.

And the story's climax had me cringe laughing.

This audacious paperback original is another small novel that packs a big punch.

At fewer than 200 pages, you could almost read it over your lunch break.

An extended one, of course.

For Marginalia, I'm Suzanne Perez.

Tell us a little bit about the book, what inspired it, and what do you hope that readers will get out of it, young and old?

So talk to me a little bit about the exciting new Reading Rainbow.

You are essentially the new LeVar Burton.

I understand that he was a hero of yours from childhood.

You know, it's a very challenging time for libraries, as you know, with book bans and all the sorts of challenges to libraries.

Why is it so timely now?

Talk to me a little bit about the issues facing libraries.

I was watching one of the Reading Rainbow episodes, and you were asked about why you need to be quiet in a library.

Apparently, that's not necessarily the case anymore.