Welcome to Litsy!

The perfect mix of compliance and violence.

3/5 🌟

The story as a whole felt a little unfinished. There were minor characters who were introduced for one or two chapters only and then disappeared without any mention of them again, why bother? I didn't hate the book but it's unmemorable and underwhelming.

Even as a satire, I‘m so bored of framing a female lead as an unlikeable character as a means of critiquing systemic issues. This book fundamentally reflects on classism and consumer culture and workers rights, and yet it blames the female lead instead which catches people up on discussions of being pretentious or whiny rather than providing a space to discuss the issues the book may have been trying to critique the entire time.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½ • Depressing and relatable to this millennial woman — I laughed out loud many times, cringed many times, I loved it. (I‘d only recommend to a few people who like this kind of story. This book in the wrong hands would be futile.)

#BookReport 06/20

Thanks to lockdown I walk a lot during the day and am able to listen to books as well as read them in print. So I have read these four and enjoyed all of them. No exceptional books among them but definitely a good week!

Milly has a depressing temp job in a depressing office. The rest of het life is depressing too. She lives alone, with no friends or hobby‘s. So Milly has the right to whine. And whining she does. The comparison with Moshfegh‘s My Year of Rest and Relaxation comes up, but that one is much better. Although I did feel sorry for Milly, especially because she wrote such sincere job application emails and was treated unfairly.

#Bookspin

The claustrophobia of feeling stuck and just not seeing the route out was pretty well written in this quick little novel. Granted I have seen fairly similar works done (maybe) better...the end didn‘t feel very well thought out. The main character wasn‘t easily likable, but I always enjoy it when a writer creates these unlikable (but familiar) characters.

#booksandbooze
#catsoflitsy
#readingbuddy

I unexpectedly really enjoyed this. It‘s not a pleasant read - protagonist Millie is in a spiral of despair and self-loathing, working a temp job that‘s going nowhere, and you follow along feeling like you‘re watching an imminent train crash - but the writing is so good; it‘s unexpectedly darkly comic, extremely perceptive, and in very few pages managed to precisely sum up so very many things.

Im really surprised I managed all 6 #booked2020 prompts this season, it‘s been a bit of a weird time and I haven‘t been able to read much so I‘m proud of this:

#redwhiteorbluetype Salem‘s Lot
#eccentricprotagonist Piranesi
#yanovelbypoc clap when you land
#whineorwine the new me
#bannedbook Sin
#armchairtravel Bird Cloud

Looking forward to getting started on fall! @BarbaraTheBibliophage @4thhouseontheleft @Cinfhen

You‘d be justified in calling this another millennial woman novel in the Ottessa Moshfegh vein about a prickly woman with issues who struggles to help herself with 21st century problems. You‘d be right, but it was fantastic and I drink all these novels up right now. The writing was sharp, funny, bitter but never Too depressing and it combined darkness with being easy to read, highly relatable and all round exactly what I was looking for.

These are the last three books I checked out from the library. 📚

#3books

Not for everyone. However, it was for me.

It may also be for you if you‘ve ever:
• Hated another woman for anti-feminist bullshit
• Had to school a tourist on the correct way to ride a subway escalator
• Been told to be grateful for a dead-end job that doesn‘t pay a living wage
• Been depressed by life under late-stage Capitalism
• Thought that something you buy will finally fix you
• Been someone‘s “at least I‘m not as bad as them” friend

This book is so darkly humorous and deals with depression so well.

If this is the “great millennial novel,” I feel like they deserve better.

Completely boring book about a boring woman who may or may not get hired by the Chicago Merch Mart, where she is temping. Seriously. Even her inner monologue is dull.

Bailing at 44%.

I think a lot of people will recognise their colleagues or acquaintences in Butler's novel about a 30 year old woman stuck in a rut.

This is depressing and repetitive but still readable. Very realistic. Millie is basically alone, works as a temp on and off and keeps telling herself ‘when I have such & such I will be happier & life will be meaningful‘; always thinking up things but never following through. I recognise it‘s a satire but it is pretty bleak. I‘m always drawn to these kind of books. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

What a sharp little bite of a read! Read by Butler on audio, and full of sarcasm and wit.

Abandoning at about halfway. Millie, a 30 year-old millennial (I presume her name is a reference to this) is pathologically incapable of coping with adult life, partially because it is difficult and unrelenting but also because she is stuck in a state of permanent adolescence. She reminds me of the protagonists in Ottessa Moshfegh‘s books; there‘s a lot of filth and disappointment and bodily functions. You really need to be in the right mood.

There was something haunting about this book... I didn‘t like it but I think that was the point and maybe it‘s a masterpiece but I am very sad now.

I just had to read the words "rich, beefy shit," so now so do you.

"Two days completely inside, swallowed up, the idea of days being wasted laughable, but still the feeling of being pulled navel-first through an atmosphere, each point more frightening because of its similarity to the last point, yet getting harder, grimmer, darker, stiffer, traces of the last bad day, the last bad experience, clinging to me, stuck to me, all my past experiences a collected grime I look through."

Big mood 😢😭

"It's like sucking on a rock and pretending it's candy, talking to this guy."

I want to be Millie's friend so badly. I feel so protective toward her. I want to sit next to her at this awful party she's at so we can be mean and nasty and malodorous and cranky and awkward together and make everyone else say "What's up with THOSE two? Who invited THEM? Just ignore them." I want to be her fuckup friend and trade stories about people we hate for no reason and our idle unspeakable urges, and be ignored and disliked together.

Ah, Millie is coded as cluster B. I don't care who thinks she's an "unlikeable" character, I love her.

"My pits are slick, and my face smells like a bagel."

This book is a bummer. A pretty repulsive and sloven lead, who is maybe this gross because of the daily malaise that comes with trying to find fulfilling and regular work in this modern economy. I feel like it‘s hard to feel sorry for a character that doesn‘t try, but also maybe is too (undiagnosed) depressed to be able to help herself. It‘s a true bummer read!

A friend of mine said this is in his top of the year. I started it last night and it‘s immensely readable but you‘re inside the heads of some unlikeable people, so we will see how it goes.

Millie is 30, working a temp job she hates, single, effectively friendless, overweight and self-loathing. What stops this novel from being utterly depressing is the wonderfully bleak humour with which it is written, as well as the barely concealed rage at an economic system which takes its brightest and best and turns them into wage serfs. Millie may be a self-pitying mess but somehow she retains our sympathy. I loved it.

This book was beautiful and brutal and very true! I have felt what Millie has felt. I have been stuck in a depressive holding pattern, thinking if I just buy the right clothes, deep clean my apartment, start doing yoga, then everything will change for me! I'll have a more meaningful and fulfilling life! I luckily broke out of the painful cycle eventually, and j think Millie does too, but it's about finding satisfaction in your true self.

You little weirdo, you! Strange little #audiobook about the current situation young people find themselves in post college. Full of anxiety and strange encounters; one wonders what Millie, MC, actually cares about. 🤷🏼‍♀️ inner thoughts of our young job seeker are super relatable but still, what in the world!? #libby

I liked this quite a bit, even though the main character Millie‘s wobbly self-awareness was painful to observe. Butler deftly captures the push-pull between career ambition and apathy/revulsion toward the capitalist rat race that many of us, millennials or not, can experience. Also relatable: Millie‘s mental lists of endless “I should”s that might improve her life (been there a time or two! 🙄).

I‘m taking a break from Recursion (amazing but intense) to start this one!

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Called millennial fiction, this book centers Millie, a young woman desperate to consume inspiration but restless in a job that doesn‘t pay a livable wage. My 22 year old idealistic self would hate her, but the 28 year old me loves her too much. Maybe, I‘m learning to love myself. Maybe, working for a living is a scam meant to alienate us from our own bodies—meant to just make us consumers.

So how do you guys find/choose #NewToYou books and authors?

Do you choose books at stores based on their cover art? Do you get the inside scoop from friends and family or perhaps a podcast? Or maybe like me you have a Netgalley account that helps you find new authors and books?

Or do you simply stick to the authors and books that you know and love?
Answer below ⬇️⬇️⬇️

#MayMadness @Clwojick @RadicalReader

Well this was strangely compelling. I started off thinking this book was darkly funny and the protagonist was amusingly misanthropic, but it became more claustrophobic and full of despair as it went on. Millie is hopeless at being an adult and the chapter when she went back to visit her parents was sweet and sad.

I'm currently at Boundary Park, watching Oldham play like utter shit. I put my reading glasses on and started reading my book when we were 4-1 down. It's now 5-2. The book is great though.

Loving this. A Lydia Davis-level sense of interiority plus an incredibly keen cultural eye. Hilarious.

I really shouldn't be buying more books but "a dark comedy of female rage" set in an office is DEFINITELY what I need with the day I'm having at work.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review. #2019readingchallenge “A Genre You Don‘t Usually Read” There‘s a reason I don‘t read this genre: I hate chick lit. Hate. The New Me is about Millie the temp in her shitty temp job. That‘s it. She is much like Holden Caulfield. That‘s not a compliment.

I could read endless books about disaffected young women navigating the absurdities of modern life, so maybe I‘m a little biased, but I loved this biting satire. Millie reminds me of an Ottessa Moshfegh protagonist: cynical, depressed, misanthropic...and overall pretty gross and pathetic. Butler perfectly captures working life for millennials in modern capitalist America stuck in the endless cycle of the gig economy.

This was a wonderful dark comedy. It definitely had me feeling the rage! Halle Butler is a wonderful story teller. Looking forward to more by her!