Halle Butler - The New Me

Thirty-year-old Millie just can't pull it together. Misanthropic and morose, she spends her days killing time at a thankless temp job until she can return home to her empty apartment, where she oscillates wildly between self-recrimination and mild delusion, fixating on all the little ways she might change her life. Then she watches TV until she drops off to sleep, and the cycle begins again.
When the possibility of a full-time job offer arises, it seems to bring the better life she's envisioning - one that involves nicer clothes, fresh produce, maybe even financial independence - within reach. But with it also comes the paralyzing realization, lurking just beneath the surface, of just how hollow that vision has become.
Darkly hilarious and devastating, The New Me is a dizzying descent into the mind of a young woman trapped in the funhouse of American consumer culture.

Comment: This is another book I brought by impulse from the library. I had not heard of this author but the blurb made me think this would be the tale of a woman who would change her life after going through difficulties...

In this book we meet Millie, a 30 something woman who is, once more, working as a temporary employee with the hopes to become effective. The agency that placed her there had all the intention of this being a good oportunity for her and Millie imagined somethign good too, but when the story begins she has been there beyond the experimental period and the company should hired her already. However, the company really wants to cut costs and Millie's boss is trying to find ways to let her go. Millie is an unsure person, always waiting for the other shoe to drop and she has collected many temporary jobs. She believes being effective could solve her problems, but is that really the solution?

This is a small book, the translated edition I got didn't reach 200 pages and the original editions seem to match that number. At the library I didn't really investigate much before grabing the book so I assumed this would be another woman's fiction about becoming who you are meant to be, about changing one's life, about learning through obstacles but overcoming them.... and I suppose one could see this if one were to look very, very meticoulously but that wasn't the goal of this novel, I'd say.

Millie does seem to embody a whole generation of people who had the access to school, to all kinds of learning tools and chances, who has had the oportunity to become better than the previous generation in terms of school and education in general. Almost as if each new generation is more and more responsible to achieve better, greater things because they have more at their disposible for that greatness than their parents and those before and so on. However, the pressure of that success has a price if, by some reason, the goals intended don't happen quickly.

In a certain way, this short novel was a good example of what the younger generations go through nowadays... I, too, remember hearing through all my school and formative years that we should do well, that we had things available to achieve that, that we should have good grades, etc, because that would translate into a good/better job. I won't go into the psychological and/or sociological aspects of this kind of pressure in a person who, for all kinds of reasons, might not be able to cope with expectations or even failures, and not reaching the highest point might not be a personal issue (economics, lifestyle, geography might all play a bigger role), since I don't have enough knowledge on these concepts but it is a fact not everyone has the same oportunities.

Back to Millie, besides the fact she doesn't seem to have honed enough skills or, perhaps I should say specific skills for the jobs she seems to gravitate to, her mental state also seems to affect her behavior. I don't think it's hard to accept that not being able to perform well at a job in order to become effective - or however this comes to be - might affect one's mind. When things don't go well or right who would not doubt oneself? A high self esteem or positive thinking aren't as easy to be for everyone. Some people simply need more reassurance. But looking for validity and confidence might also be seen as a weakness by others, who are doign well. In this regard, I think this novel was interesting and made me think about several issues.

Portuguese cover

Nevertheless, even allowing for the fact the plot isn't really complicated, I did expect more closure out of this. The story is narrated by Millie with just two or three chapters (if I remember correctly) told in third person by the POV of other characters. I suppose this tactic was to give us an idea of why certain things are happening - such as why Millie isn't being considered to become effective at the company. The focus is clearly on Millie and what she is thinking, and I could sympathize with her fears of not being sucessful at something, again. Personality wise, she isn't always easy to like, though.

Still, I hoped something good would happen to her, something uplifting somehow. It felt too many negative situations were highlighted, including her mental state (I'd say she was depressed, perhaps...) and not enough positive to contrast. Of course, real life isn't as simple as this, but I thought the author's point would be to present that posisbility... instead, this stoty feels like it is a repetitive negative cycle, and not really as inspiring as I imagined it would be.

Millie doesn't change and her situation either. I'm sure there's a "lesson" in this reality and in how easily people get stuck in a cycle, a way of life and how hard it is to change and to simply be good at something else. I can recognize the effectiveness of this notion, but I still hoped Millie could find some happiness or, at least, some improvement in her life throuout the novel... to me, this didn't really materialize.

Grade: 5/10