The New Me

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 show more 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. show less

A quote on the back cover of ‘The New Me’ states that ‘Certain sentences are liable to give the reader a paper cut’. I think this underplays the effect of the writing. For me, reading it was more like the feeling of doing the washing up after midnight, just before bed, in a soft sleepy state, rinsing an empty can, forgetting the sharp edges, and looking down to suddenly realise you’ve sliced your hand open. I had that sensation when reading this part:

You can’t ask someone to help you without letting them know you’re different than advertised, that you’ve been thinking and feeling strange things this whole time. That you’re uglier, weaker, more annoying, more basic, less interesting than promised. Without letting on

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that your feelings are easily hurt, and that you are boring, just like everyone else. Once you expose yourself as insecure, it’s easy to feel resentment if you’re not immediately put back at ease. If there’s even a flicker, a tiny recognition of your bad qualities, the resentment kicks in, the deal is broken, and suddenly you’re both angry strangers, spending hours alone in a room together and completely unsure of why.
But who cares anyway, it’s always better to be alone, better this way, better to be able to be yourself with yourself, openly awful. Who cares? Nobody.

This short, serrated novel reminded me of [b:My Year of Rest and Relaxation|44279110|My Year of Rest and Relaxation|Ottessa Moshfegh|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553096683l/44279110._SY75_.jpg|55508660]. Both focus on privileged young American women who are lonely and depressed to the point of destructive self-medication. In [b:My Year of Rest and Relaxation|44279110|My Year of Rest and Relaxation|Ottessa Moshfegh|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553096683l/44279110._SY75_.jpg|55508660], the protagonist resorts to medication-induced hibernation. Millie of ‘The New Me’ drinks heavily and makes sporadic attempts at shallow commoditised lifestyle improvements, like buying a pass to a yoga studio. Neither of the two novels' protagonists have any meaningful emotional support in their lives and are surrounded by material objects that offer them no comfort. The focus of ‘The New Me’, however, is on the hell of working in an office. Millie’s life is dominated by the pointless indignity of her miserable temp job. The contrast between her hyper-professional emails and inner thoughts is especially effective. Occasionally the point of view strays from Millie to a co-worker or neighbour, reinforcing how isolated she is.

It’s no spoiler to say the whole book is bleak as fuck. Thus I can’t say I really enjoyed it, although I found it very compelling and appreciated how well-observed the dark humour is. Butler captures and dissects the suppressed rage than can underlie unhappiness among women in particular. As with [b:My Year of Rest and Relaxation|44279110|My Year of Rest and Relaxation|Ottessa Moshfegh|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553096683l/44279110._SY75_.jpg|55508660], the ending was more hopeful than I'd feared. Given their depths of depression, both could have ended with the main character’s suicide. Instead, Millie manages to find herself another futile office job to resent. All told, a discomforting and acidic read. It certainly conveys the corrosive effects of late capitalism on the mental health of young women in a relatively privileged milieu. show less

An unsettling little horror that not only deals with supernatural and surreal happenings, but with the aftershocks of trauma and loss.

It's hard to describe this novel as anything other than a mix between Stephen King's early books (think The Shining-meets-Cujo-meets-Pet Semetary) and The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. I appreciated how the narrative was written as a monologue Theigo's wife, Vera, which adds to the novel's intensity and eeriness. For being a horror, it's an oddly emotional read that leaves you a bit heartbroken and uneasy.

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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.

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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 show more 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. show less