Ringing for You

British-based Forrester's larky first novel shimmies through the life of a well-educated, overqualified temp receptionist as she juggles her boring job with her frustrating love life. The unnamed narrator says she ""took a Masters degree in the History of Punishment,"" though she omits this achievement from her r sum for fear of scaring off employers. Temping at the tedious Academy of Material Science in London, she uses free time at her 9-to-5 desk job to write a novel about her floundering romantic life, in part to convince herself that she isn't turning into ""horrible corporate vegetation."" She blames such frequent interruptions as phone calls or package deliveries--which are indicated throughout the text with whimsical textual icons--for preventing her from producing a cohesive narrative, and the result is an enjoyable jumble of neurotic journal entries, philosophical meandering and academic asides. Prone to panic attacks and narcoleptic fits, the rebellious and insecure narrator feels petulantly superior to her fellow drones. Explaining her abhorrence for office parties, she sniffs, ""I don't want to see these people when they're drunk."" Yet she also spends much of the novel obsessing over office hierarchy, as well as pondering the invention and social significance of the telephone, what books are and why people like them, and the meaning of extraordinary love and work versus the merely ordinary. Readers are likely to feel about Forrester's book the way her narrator describes her own reading material: skimming a contemporary American novel featuring a similar receptionist heroine, the spunky protagonist feels ""jealous and then... bored"" to find another angsty secretary to identify with, finding the manic pretensions a bit tedious, but appreciative of the ""funny words and `interesting' ways of saying things and witty (yet surprisingly `deep') anecdotes."" (Aug.)