Jillian

A Novel

By: Halle Butler

Narrated by: Halle Butler

Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

The "sublimely awkward and hilarious" (Chicago Tribune), National Book Award "5 Under 35" - garnering first novel from the acclaimed author of The New Me - now in a new edition

Twenty-four-year-old Megan may have her whole life ahead of her, but it already feels like a dead end, thanks to her dreadful job as a gastroenterologist's receptionist and her heart-clogging resentment of the success and happiness of everyone around her. But no one stokes Megan's bitterness quite like her coworker, Jillian, a grotesquely optimistic, 35-year-old single mother whose chirpy positivity obscures her mounting struggles.  

Megan and Jillian's lives become increasingly precarious as their faulty coping mechanisms - denial, self-help books, alcohol, religion, prescription painkillers, obsessive criticism, alienated boyfriends, and, in Jillian's case, the misguided purchase of a dog - send them spiraling toward their downfalls. Wickedly authentic and brutally funny, Jillian is a subversive portrait of two women trapped in cycles of self-delusion and self-destruction, each more like the other than they would care to admit.

©2020 Halle Butler (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"In its ability to induce paralyzing existential depression, the fiction of Halle Butler is perhaps matched only by those Black Friday news stories in which grandmothers get trampled in front of stacks of fifty-five-inch TVs." (Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker)

"[A] claustrophobic, anxiety-inducing book." (Lydia Kiesling, The New Yorker)

"Few authors capture the acidic angst of downtrodden millennials like Butler." (Huffington Post)

Nobody Writes (or Performs) Like Halle Butler

Let me get this out of the way right now – I'm neither a Millennial nor female, but there's something about Butler's writing that speaks to a universal loneliness in 21st century America. Like "The New Me," "Jillian" is a character study rather than a traditional narrative – actually two character studies. The author brilliantly captures the absurdities of the workplace once again. This book is at times laugh out loud funny and deeply penetrating, often at the same time. Her understanding of people's motivations remains sharp and, as the predecessor to "The New Me," this novel contains glimmers of approaches and ideas she put to greater use in the subsequent book. One of the most striking is the occasional "cosmic" observation that she slips in out of nowhere; one that puts all the micro-annoyances of life into perspective. Finally, I'm grateful that Butler performs her audio books – her emphasis and intonations bring the dialogue to life.

OK, not as great as The New Me

(Tepid 3.5)

I liked The New Me more. This one was fine but felt a little all over the place, edging on boring at times. I never knew what Megan wanted, and I barely kept track of characters like Randy, Erica, etc. Jillian was a well-drawn character, however. She was the highlight that made me keep reading (listening, rather).

I always like first person perspective more, and this is in third person, so maybe some of my opinion comes just from that. It felt at times like it was a very distant third person, as though I were watching chess pieces move across a board. I had a hard time finding the living, breathing people at the heart of the story. I do like how short Halle Butler’s books are. I can listen to one full story in one half-shift at work, which is cool. And I adore her deadpan narration on the audiobooks. It’s always perfect for the tone of the work in my opinion, and I find it refreshing when an author reads their own writing. The final scene and image was satisfying enough, though it did leave me wondering “what was the point?”

Despite my qualms with this one, I will certainly buy Butler’s next book when it’s available.

struggle from start to finish

struggled to get through even the first chapter but pushed on. none of the characters are at all likeable.

Narrator

I really enjoyed the story but the narrator wasn’t my cup of tea....I quit after part 1...I couldn’t go on