Title: What In God’s Name
Author: Simon Rich
Published: August, 2012 by Serpent’s Tail
Pages: 240
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Welcome to Heaven, Inc., the grossly mismanaged corporation in the sky. For as long as anyone can remember, the founder and CEO (known in some circles as “God”) has been phoning it in. Lately, he’s been spending most of his time on the golf course. And when he does show up at work, it’s not to resolve wars or end famines, but to Google himself and read what humans have been blogging about him.

When God decides to retire (to pursue his lifelong dream of opening an Asian Fusion restaurant), he also decides to destroy Earth. His employees take the news in stride, except for Craig and Eliza, two underpaid angels in the lowly Department of Miracles. Unlike their boss, Craig and Eliza love their jobs – uncapping city fire hydrants on hot days, revealing lost keys in snow banks – and they refuse to accept that earth is going under.

The angels manage to strike a deal with their boss. He’ll call off his Armageddon, if they can solve their toughest miracle yet: getting the two most socially awkward humans on the planet to fall in love. With doomsday fast approaching, and the humans ignoring every chance for happiness thrown their way, Craig and Eliza must move heaven and earth to rescue them – and the rest of us, too.

Final Thoughts:
I did not expect to get through this one so quickly. Pretty much in a reading slump lately, I surprised myself the further I found myself getting through the book. Set in the offices of Heaven, it follows the lives of two over-achieving angels employed to take care of the miracles side of the business. While it does seem to play things a bit light-heartedly, it somehow manages to shift the stakes to the extreme without batting an eyelid. It’s an addictively warm romantic comedy that leaves you rooting for not only for the disastrously inept, but fated couple they’re looking after on Earth, but the awkward angels as well.