about this book

Retail Therapy is a raucous and darkly funny meditation on consumerism, survival, and self-worth in an era of economic decline. Through biting dialogue and vivid detail, Jess Cole paints a portrait of working life on the crumbling high street, where ambition collides with corporate indifference and identity becomes both a performance and a commodity.

Set in the basement of a fading department store, the novel follows the HOTshop GIRLS as they navigate shifting sales tactics, impossible targets, and the gradual erosion of their aspirations. Between stockroom politics, relentless corporate oversight, and the absurd logic of retail, they find moments of wit, camaraderie, and fleeting resistance against a system designed to wear them down.

Exploring class, power, and precarity, Cole exposes the quiet desperation beneath everyday transactions. With sharp humour and unflinching honesty, Retail Therapy captures the exhaustion of late capitalism, where even escape feels like something that must be bought and sold.

Jess Cole (she/her) is a writer based in South London. She has written for Vogue, The New York Times, and The Guardian, and is a regular contributor to MARFA. Her creative practice spans dramaturgy, performance, and prose.

This book was selected by Tique for Objects & Sounds.