Halle ButlerKirja-arvosteluja

This book is a hard and an easy read. I have basically read it in three or four sessions spread over a few days. While reading I started hating the world and our social constucts more and more with each flipping, actually swiping, of the digital pages. At the end the book felt really true. The writer has managed to capture quite well how today's society works.

Weirdly mundane and vaguely unsettling, but also somehow so f-ing satisfying and full of this dark, satirical rage that was addictive to read. Reading this is like having a dream where you’re watching a car wreck happen in slow motion right in front of you but then you wake up and you find yourself actively behind the wheel of the car that’s wrecking.

Butler does such a strong job of capturing being in your late 20s/early 30s, unsure about the future, trying your best even when you're just angry or desperately wanting a single real friend to talk to. Set against the backdrop of contemporary consumerist culture in America, this novel really creates such a vivid landscape of the frustrating routines Millie finds herself in- she's all at once hyper-aware of and yet unable to escape the banalities of life.

"The New Me" isn't going to be a book for everyone, but if you've ever found yourself in a situation similar to Millie then you're going to find something familiar in these pages, whether you want to admit it or not.

One of those it's funny while you listen to it but at the end you're like ok... What? Good inner monologue pointing out the pointlessness of life and what people talk about but not much more than that for me.

Millie is lost. Having broken up with her boyfriend, she lives alone in her apartment and watches episode after episode of the Forensic Files to pass the time. She seems to not care about much; she is financially dependent on her parents, she has friends who she doesn't really like, and let's face it, she's kind of a filthy slob. She's been working a temp job that she thinks is a joke, but once the idea of full time employment enters the picture, Millie’s actions begin to shift.

I'm not gonna lie: I love a good book about a millennial being lost (just take a look at my 2018 reads, they pretty much plague that list!). However, this particular book fell flat for me. It was almost as though it was trying to be Otessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation... only it was not nearly as interesting or well written. I know this book was satirical, but come on, even a satire requires a bit more of a plot than "depressed millennial is depressed".

Anyway, there is one thing that really saved this book from being a one star read: the Millie/Karen dynamic feels so real! How many times have you met a Karen in your life? That one person who is so off putting and so observant that you can feel their eyes judging you when you turn your back? The. Worst.

A special thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

UGH THAT ENDING. Essentially all my thoughts on life.

Loved this. Loved the sinking feeling of impending doom that I felt while reading it, the depressive monotony. Butler did an excellent job of conveying feelings without even once "telling" us the feelings.

those of you who "loved" the trial by kafka and hated this just lack the ability to conduct proper emotional analysis in modern times, I am sorry

refere to: chapter 7

3.75

As someone that suffers from anxiety, a biting internal monologue, has had her share of one-sided friendships and has survived being a gifted child only to barely scrape by at various hodge-podge of entry level positions that somehow are capable of paying you even less than they respect you, I can say with authority that this novel was incredibly relatable.

That is what Butler does. She writes relatable everyday characters that may bore the crap out of some, for others pull back the veil, and for readers like me had me wondering if Butler was trailing me and silently and auditing my life. She even had it down to the supportive and well-meaning parents that try and bail you out of your miserable and pitiful existence. Wow, I am making myself feel amazing right now. ROFL.

Even though my last temp position (13 years ago) ended in permanent employment and a series of promotions, I still feel like Millie. Millie still lives inside me, enthusiastic to buy that more expensive hearts of palm pasta from Whole Foods, but always replaying past mistakes in my head and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Scathing and hard to read in the best way possible.

"Jeg overvejer, hvordan jeg vil være nødt til at opføre mig, hvor mange ændringer jeg vil være nødt til at lave, for at jeg kan skubbe mig selv ned i fastansættelsens endeløse afgrund." (Hovedpersonen Millie, på side 7).

Romanen ramte lige ned i mine følelser omkring at søge arbejde efter endt uddannelse, og trods satiren grinte jeg ikke. Jeg slugte bare siderne.

Sigrid Adamssons efterord om at blive isoleret og tro at det hele er ens egen skyld når man ikke kan finde en plads på arbejdsmarkedet eller få tilværelsen til at gå op, er også vældig godt.

Disaffected millennial suffers from depression and misanthropy. Extremely hateable Millie (hope this isn’t an approximation of “Millennial”) is an arrogant 20-something who’s semi-aware of social performance but unable to act it out herself. Not a “fun” read, but Butler shines at writing self-absorbed internal monologues, showcasing the subtle cruelties and humiliations of everyday social interactions, and illustrating the self-sheltering delusions all of us craft against blaring reality.

Painful. Awkward. Enjoyable

A quick, snarky millennial existentialism similar to Severance and My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

hilarious, deadpan existential kafkaesque treatise on millennial ennui. i really adored it½

Jillian by Halle Butler is a novel that speaks to the idea that our public facade and our private hell do not always align neatly. You will either recognize both people you know and yourself in these characters or you'll pretend you're above them, but either way you will know that we all contain some aspects of both Jillian and Megan.

Once you've read the book and remember my comment you'll want to come back and tell me you're not like either of them. To which I will smile and clarify that I did not say most readers were like them but that there are aspects of what they are experiencing that we have all experienced. If you still disagree, make sure you don't miss your next doctor's appointment, hopefully you'll start making progress soon.

These aren't so much bad people as they are people who make bad decisions and/or make for toxic scenes. I wouldn't want to be within their circle of acquaintances or coworkers, but that is different from proclaiming them bad people. We see Megan and Jillian doing things that are dishonest, mean, or just plain pointless. Then we are privy to their thoughts and their life beyond any single role (coworker, mother, partner, friend, etc) and can understand where they are coming from. We don't condone their actions and we like to think we would never do what they do. And if you have never been rude or curt or lied at work or tried to present your life as better than it is, congratulations, you're delusional, I mean, you're one of the lucky none, I mean, lucky ones. If you can't empathize at all with these women and the pain they are going through, I feel sorry for you.

Having said all that, this is the type of book some people won't enjoy. Maybe they empathize too much, maybe they relate too closely, maybe they simply don't like books that look closely at the lives of people who seem to be self-destructing. Plenty of reasons to not like this book. But if you want to try to understand how and why we all do some stupid things, this over the top example will offer plenty of material for you to think about.

We will all likely take different things away from this novel. I found myself thinking about times I felt similar to either Megan or Jillian and what I did. I also, because of how I think about stories like this, read some meaning into it that likely wasn't intentional. For instance, the character who seems like she might be changing for the better is the one who has been and will be relying on friends. Those friends have expressed concern and tried to help her feel better (all the while being flawed humans themselves). The one that seems to be spiraling out of control has an entirely different group that should help her but is instead ridiculing her. That group is part of an institution that always claims to be positive but is often (usually in my experience) more about show and making oneself look good.

I have recommended this to many of my friends but there are some I know wouldn't like it. So I do indeed think you should read it unless you know you want a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end; and a story that answers more questions than it raises. If you like a book similar to life, with all of its inconsistencies and lack of closure, then you will find a lot to enjoy and think about here.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.

Full disclosure: I started this book fully expecting to dislike it, based on an excerpt published in LARB and praise for it as emblematic of the "millennial experience." These are great expectations for any novel to live up to, but this particular novel--about a well-educated office temp whose "millennial experience" does not seem to include student loans, health insurance, or even paying her own rent; whose parents are stable and both financially and emotionally supportive; whose primary challenge is maybe personal hygiene--is especially unsatisfying. If you're looking for a tepid send-up of white corporate feminism, this might be interesting to you.

Chapter 28 pushed me over from "this is very boring" to "this is aggressively bad and shockingly shallow." Sample, from an omniscient narrator wrapping up the novel after the main character left her job selling season subscriptions to the ballet:

People still bought season passes to the ballet, hoping that the performances would somehow transform them...No one thought about the scope of history that would evade them, the sea of identical people who would replace them as time made its waves back and forth, back and forth, seemingly linear, deceptive, stationary and changing all at once.

Coronavirus reading in isolation is all over the place for me. Sometimes it’s hard to know just what I’m in the mood to read – happy or sad, short or long, present or past. What brought me to The New Me was the fly on the cover, suggesting the not all is well despite the shiny hair also depicted. It led me to discover that snark and bitterness can be highly entertaining. Enter Millie, the main character of the story.

Millie is a temp and has been for some time. If she had a permanent job, she could go to yoga, dress better and order fancy groceries instead of just the basics. Somehow she would fit in to the office banter, instead of being on the fringe all the time. Who wants to know someone who will only hang around for a brief time? But from her temp status, Millie can sit back and judge the office politics and workers. That is what she does beautifully – pure snark as she watches interactions and embellishes them with her own judgements and thoughts. Through glimpses into her co-workers’ lives, the reader can see that Millie is not short of the mark. This is a story of apathy, bitterness and tiredness. Millie is tired, tired of putting on her best to try and snatch that elusive permanent job.

What’s great about The New Me is that none of the characters are telling the whole truth. Millie talks about taking care of her appearance, but others complain that she has poor personal grooming and hygiene. Millie’s supervisor Karen hates Millie, but some of her reasons are due to her own need to be recognised and made to feel important in the organisation. (One of the best scenes is when Karen’s bosses discuss her, showing Karen’s blind spots in her own narrative). Millie’s co-workers don’t feel as comfortable in their own skins as Millie imagines, with their own plans going awry. Millie isn’t always a sympathetic character, as she sometimes lacks the energy to help herself, despite having the insight to. She knows she is on a train to nowhere, and her enthusiasm about having a permanent job is somewhat pitiful yet sweet. It also had me feeling guilty at taking for granted the ability to put ‘nice chocolate’ or similar treats in the shopping trolley. The other characters are similar, having points when the reader sympathises with her but coming across as selfish/entitled/plain annoying at times.

The ending is another high point of this snarky novel as Millie is judged in the way she wouldn’t expect to be for the rest of the novel. It’s the perfect ending, not necessarily happy, but realistic. Halle Butler knows how to get the message across with biting satire without being verbose.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com½

This book circles the everyday of a couple of American women who are at different ends of one point: their workplace. While it's fiction, it may as well be described as not; I could spot traces in this modern-day Western semi-horror book in my own life, where work has been concerned, and also friendship, for the latter where people have been more of a vague touchpoint rather than friends.

Butler's book veers into family as a safe haven from the rocky earthquake that is work. Her main protagonist, Millie, goes back and forth without much other than work as her beacon. That, frankly, can be said for the most of us who must work to live, at least without starving.

I walk home in the dark, in the snow. My tights sagging. A hole in the side of my shoe. I open my dark apartment and turn on all the lights, like there might be someone who needs to use a room I’m not in. Like I’m expecting company. Like I still share my life. I light a cigarette and open my laptop. I turn on an episode of Forensic Files, my favorite of the serialized murder documentaries, to comfort myself. There’s someone in the house! I wish.

I know that Forensic Files is propaganda for the Justice Department, like all of these crime shows are, and that they instill a weird deference to authority and a childish fear of the other, and that TV in general messes with your perception of time and influences your desires and gives you unattainable expectations for life, but I still can’t make it through the night without it.

Butler's fly-on-the-wall approach to report of what goes on in Millie's world is one of the author's fortés:

I hear one of the designers talking to a client on the phone, trying to schedule something. There’s a lot of bold laughter, loud friendly sentences. She is presenting herself as a mixture of accommodating (“Well, that’s completely up to you, Linda”) and urgent (“Let’s not wait too much longer on the Emery order, shipping takes forever”). I anticipate a dramatic sigh, possibly a “Jesus Christ,” when she hangs up.

We all board after passing the overweight, depressed-looking Charon in the hallway, who continuously shouts, “Have your IDs ready!” She screams it at me, while holding my cracked phone and checking my e-ticket.

This book reveals much of a western person's thoughts, as molded by popular media and misconstructs on how to live The Perfect Life, and that's partly why I liked it and loathed its inhabitants; the author's sense of written style is affable and only a little challenging, which—also—is why I really like and dislike this book; I suppose that this is, also, why it's both more challenging and interesting than what a written version of the tv-series "Girls" could be like.

I can understand the comparison between this short novel and My Year of Rest and Relaxation, which is one of my favorites of the year. However, for me this one didn't work as well. Perhaps it's because I can find nothing in the main character, Millie, to connect myself to. I like to think that I would never find myself in an existence such as hers (and why does she always smell?). The people around her seem just as shallow and purposeless, though. Is life really just a colossal waste of time? This book really depressed me.

Millie is working as a temp in the office of a design company. She answers phones and collates papers and dislikes her co-workers, who return the favor. Despite the mind-numbing boredom, she hopes to be made permanent and the signs are looking good. She thinks about how much her life will be improved by the modest bump in pay and begins her program to become The New Me, better than the old one, a person who doesn't spend all her time watching TV on her laptop and drinking, but who does things like yoga and reading and keeping her apartment tidy.

Halle Butler has written about a character who would fit right in with anything written by Ottessa Moshfegh. Millie is an unpleasant, suffocating person to spend time with and this novel was a delight. There was a sense of things being able to go in any number of directions, most of them very bad. Butler's writing was sharp as knives and nails the atmosphere of office life, a place where we are obligated to be, doing things we don't enjoy, in the company of people we'd rather not be around.½

The Short of It:

Think “The Office” minus all the funny characters who make it laughable.

The Rest of It:

Millie is a thirty-something who hasn’t quite figured out how to be a grown-up. She lives alone in an apartment that is partly paid for by her parents. Friends? Not many. She eats poorly and has become a slob. Dressing is too much effort. Just getting up is too much effort but she drags herself to and from her temp job, hoping for a permanent position.

Millie embodies what I think most people this age feel these days. Their social skills are lacking to the point where everything they do is marked by awkwardness. A simple interaction with a co-worker becomes an anxiety-ridden experience and miscommunications become a daily occurrence. Millie is woefully aware of her shortcomings. Because of this, I found myself wanting to take her out for a coffee just so I could give her a little pep talk.

I really enjoyed The New Me. At first, I thought the entire book would be an outline of her day-to-day existence but although there is a lot of that (what she wears, eats, thinks, does), there is enough self-discovery going on for it all to have a purpose.

I found Butler’s take on cube life to be quite accurate. I’ve always had an office but for the past two years have been working out of a very nice, well-appointed cubical and all the little details she adds to embellish office life are spot on. The noises. The sighs. The trash cans and the smells. I found much of the book humorous but in a dark way.

The ending was interesting and honestly, can be interpreted in a couple different ways. I kind of liked that it was up to me but maybe I am the only one to see the alternate possibility? I haven’t seen it mentioned elsewhere.

Anyway, enjoyable and short and if you’ve ever had to work in a cube or struggled to get by as a young person, you will be able to relate.

For more reviews, visit my blog: Book Chatter.

This book is sour and bitter and weird and that's why I love it.

Disparaging portrayals of Millenials are in vogue right now, spawning a flood of novels with unlikeable and irredeemable 20-something characters. Halle Butler brings a breath of fresh air into this endless conversation with her first novel, Jillian. The book vacillates between the viewpoints of two anti-heroines who are prototypes of the stereotypical self-involved generation of young adults. These two women are forced to work together in a small doctor’s office, despite their opposing temperaments and simmering animosity. Jillian is the ultimate optimist with big dreams but no organization or grit to see any of them to fruition. She races from goal to goal, seeking signs of destiny that she is compelled to embrace until a new one comes along. Jillian is a single mother of a young child, despite still being childlike herself. Telling lies to keep up appearances, she even begins to believe her own fabrications. Her officemate, Megan, despises Jillian and expresses this opinion in passive-aggressive behaviors followed by a litany of complaints to her pitiable boyfriend. Megan presents herself as hard-edged and pessimistic, suspicious and anti-social. She uses her barbed tone to protect herself, attempting to cover up her low self-esteem with an attitude of superiority. Megan drinks excessively and ostentatiously-what she relies on as a social lubricant ultimately isolates her. In bursts of short vignettes, Butler presents external and internal viewpoints of her two main characters. The reader gains insight into how others view them and how they view themselves. Both women seem to be rudderless, headed for major meltdowns due to their inability to adjust to a world that refuses to accommodate them. Jillian is a quirky novel that is at turns witty and tragic. The reader feels sympathy for Jillian and Megan while simultaneously wincing with each bad decision and botched attempt at “adulting.” A unique and talented new voice, Halle Butler is an author worth following.

Quirky, with a side order of side-eye. This petite novel concerns co-workers Jillian and Megan and asks the reader to choose sides. Megan despises Jillian, who is worthy of contempt for all her self-delusion and lying. In about 225 pages, Jillian: gets a rescue dog and keeps it locked up in the bathroom all day, lies about a collision with a deer on the road and scams her employers, two gastroenterologists, into giving her prescription Tylenols, and neglects her toddler son. All of this, however, does not make Megan a better person in comparison. It's every horrible job you've ever had and every awful employee you've ever met, but the redemption is that Megan's lack of awareness of her own foibles make it all pretty hilarious - or just hilarious - it's not a pretty pictures. If you require likeable characters in your stories, run away.

Quotes: "Amanda was low-medium pretty, less pretty than Megan, which put Megan at ease, but more attractive than Megan because she bothered to groom herself."

"If you see something you're envious of, the only escape hatch from that feeling is to insult the object, but that was a hatch that just led to a deeper and more confusing layer of self-doubt and self-dislike."

3.25