Shelf Life (novel)

"For the episode of Fairly Odd Parents please see Shelf Life."

"Shelf Life" is a novel written by Robert Corbet and published in 2004. The novel deals with an unnamed supermarket and the various people who work there. Each chapter is named after an aisle of the store, but may only have some minor references to it. There are other smaller chapters that deal with other areas such as Accounts and Service Desk. Each character has one chapter about them, which usually involves their current situation, then goes into a flashback about what had happened beforehand.

Characters

Adam

Adam is a 17-year-old boy who manages to get a job on the "floor" (i.e. reshelving and cleaning) because his dad doesn't want him to laze around-Adam got the job through connections, although on the floor he is known as Andy to the customers. A big fan of TV, Adam would rather be watching TV than working. His first aim is to create anarchy within the store-starting with drawing the anarchy symbol in a pool of something black and sticky-but this aim is eventually replaced with the opposite, in an effort to impress Louisa, a girl he has a crush on. Adam is the only other character besides Louisa to have more than one chapter where he's the main character or a supporting character with Louisa. He is also the only other character to not have a flashback of some sort.

Louisa

Also 17, Louisa is a very studious girl, shown by the fact that while she's three days younger than Adam, she's in her first year at university, studying to be a nurse. A supermarket worker by day and a training nurse by night, Louisa is often very tired but she still maintains a good work ethic, shown by being named Employee Of The Month at the start of the novel. She is oblivious to Adam's crush on her at first, but she eventually asks him out. Her role in the store is mostly that of reshelving and manning the service desk.

Chloe

One of the checkout girls, Chloe plans on being a dancer. She is self-conscious of her body image, developing a rating system. Her job before working as a checkout chick was a nanny to a family who had recently had three other nannies leave due to some unknown reason. She plans on being a dancer and has had a long string of boyfriends, mostly within the store.

Emma

Another checkout chick, Emma is at uni(or college) studying to be an actor. Most of her chapter is written like a movie script. She tends to get along with most of the other checkout girls, particularly Chloe, and is the one who dobs Tessa in for stealing, although she pretends to be upset at first, it's all an act.

Jared

One of the trolley/floor boys, Jarred and Dylan are the "goofballs" of the store, doing things like taping over the training videos, stealing lollies from the self-serve confectionery bins and playing around with the others. Suffering from ADHD, then bipolar disorder, Jared had two small jobs before working at the store: a paper run and cleaning windscreen wipers. He and Dylan get along well and are like an unbreakable partnership.

other characters include ruby (turns lesiban)Chloe (who is a low-ee)