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A review by cuppalatte
Not Working by Lisa Owens
3.0
Whew, what a journey it has been, this book!
It was written in the stars, the moment in which this book came to me.
‘The frustrated millennial narrator quits her job because there must be more to life than marketing novelty vodka. The trouble is, she’s not sure what. Maybe she shouldn't have walked out of her job with no idea what to do next. Maybe she should think before she speaks -- and maybe then her mother would start returning her calls. Maybe she should be spending more time going to art galleries, or reading up on current affairs, and less time in her pyjamas, entering competitions on the internet. Then again, maybe the perfect solution to life's problems only arises when you stop looking for it . . .”
I read this synopsis when I was two weeks away from my last day at my office.
I knew this was not a coincidence.
I knew that Buzzfeed's millennial burnout article has gone viral recently, and websites are compiling book lists to optimise the trend.
I knew all of this because just like Claire Flannery, I was into marketing or creative communications, or what does it matter, I may never need to explain it now.
The thing is, even after finding eerie similarities, I decided not to read the book immediately, ignoring all signs of it being a cautionary tale for me.
I knew the decision I had taken, and what I needed to do, what I needed to try, and what I needed to accept, before admitting failure. I knew I would probably be making the same mistakes, I knew that I would be able to laugh at them, but later, not now.
I allowed myself a chance at my own journey of soul-searching, even though I always knew my period of rest isn’t about finding my great purpose - it is 2019 and that phrase has already become a cliche. Probably, it was less so in 2016, when this book came out.
So, 6 months in ‘voluntary unemployment’, as our dear protagonist calls it, having been through a lot of breakthroughs and breakdowns, I decided that the time was right for us, me and the book.
I read it in a day, morning to night.
It was liking reading Bridget Jones, but with fear of disappointing everyone and being stuck in an unsatisfying job instead of the fear of dying alone.
It felt good to be represented as someone who started the first job on an impulse to pay the bills and live the life and ended up staying there way too long. (I felt relieved knowing that I didn’t stay as long as Claire did).
It felt good, knowing that I wasn’t alone or weirdly wired in my struggles with job applications and not being able to muster the energy to simply do it.
It felt good, knowing about hoarding, and how the piles simply represent various emotions we are avoiding or have blocked - sadness, defeat, confusion or sometimes even ambition or hope.
It felt good, knowing that I’m not alone in resenting peers for doing well.
It felt good, knowing that an overwhelmed, over-expecting, and probably overly delusional person feels the same kind of apathy towards daily news and current affairs as I do, despite wanting to keep up with them.
It felt good, reading through daily observations of an idle mind.
Those off-plot ramblings were probably my favorite parts. Might pick up a book of essays by the author, if she decides to write them, just to read more of those.
But amidst all these cleverly written observations and situations that hit home with their relatability accuracy, I found myself waiting for something that never came - Claire’s real issues.
We brush upon vague issues of child abuse, and the 'under-the-rug' coping technique adopted by the family is also way too real. It doesn’t make for a satisfying read as there isn’t enough drama, trauma, blaming or crying around that one incident, but it really shows how these matters are often dealt with in real life.
We brush upon issues with her mother, which don’t go deep. It’s a typical trope of a critical mother and a self-doubting daughter. Also, I would have loved to see some sibling equation too, but it was more or less compensated with comparisons to cousins, so I’m going to let that go.
Soon everything is about Claire’s feelings of insecurity around her boyfriend, and her friends moving into commitments sooner than she is, and becomes less and less about work and status and identity.
We briefly see it being discussed in a conversation with her friend, where Claire mentions that the job she wants has a corner window office and fancy food is available and all that jazz, to which her friend replies, "I think I see where you went wrong. All those vague, title-less jobs have already been taken by characters in New York-based romcoms."
This, I felt was the best lesson I could derive from this book.
Things that really disappointed me:
1. Where is the social media anxiety, the FOMO?
If I REALLY cut it some slack, the book came out in early 2016, back when Instagram still had its old logo, and Instagram stories had not been invented yet. Yeah, seems unimaginable now right? Given that it has become the major FOMO and anxiety causing source amongst its users by giving them the idea that their friends are having a better time, it would have played a really strong plot device in the book. But, even without the stories, social media was going pretty strong in 2016. To eliminate it entirely and have the character physically interact with all of her friends all of the time, seemed a bit more romcom-ish than an actual believable story of a person going through a crisis. THEY WOULDN’T LEAVE THE HOUSE, DAMMIT!
2. Where are confrontations, relationship issues?
The boyfriend character is way too ideal, way too understanding. Hard to believe he was real. Didn’t lash out once.
3. Give me more details of despair and emptiness.
The toughest scenarios of self-doubt and regret over choices, the nights, are skimmed through, with brief mentions of going down internet search spirals.
4. WHERE IS BINGE-WATCHING?????????
I refuse to believe that any person, in this day and age, wouldn’t watch tons of TV if left home alone with zero obligations and responsibilities. I needed a manic episode of realising the audacious amount of lost time watching 10 seasons of total crap, one episode after another. Netflix, streaming, even cable TV watching, was missing and I could not digest it.
In the end I’d just say this:
It felt good, reading through daily observations of an idle mind.
Those off-plot ramblings were probably my favorite parts. Might pick up a book of essays by the author, if she decides to write them, just to read more of those.
It was written in the stars, the moment in which this book came to me.
‘The frustrated millennial narrator quits her job because there must be more to life than marketing novelty vodka. The trouble is, she’s not sure what. Maybe she shouldn't have walked out of her job with no idea what to do next. Maybe she should think before she speaks -- and maybe then her mother would start returning her calls. Maybe she should be spending more time going to art galleries, or reading up on current affairs, and less time in her pyjamas, entering competitions on the internet. Then again, maybe the perfect solution to life's problems only arises when you stop looking for it . . .”
I read this synopsis when I was two weeks away from my last day at my office.
I knew this was not a coincidence.
I knew that Buzzfeed's millennial burnout article has gone viral recently, and websites are compiling book lists to optimise the trend.
I knew all of this because just like Claire Flannery, I was into marketing or creative communications, or what does it matter, I may never need to explain it now.
The thing is, even after finding eerie similarities, I decided not to read the book immediately, ignoring all signs of it being a cautionary tale for me.
I knew the decision I had taken, and what I needed to do, what I needed to try, and what I needed to accept, before admitting failure. I knew I would probably be making the same mistakes, I knew that I would be able to laugh at them, but later, not now.
I allowed myself a chance at my own journey of soul-searching, even though I always knew my period of rest isn’t about finding my great purpose - it is 2019 and that phrase has already become a cliche. Probably, it was less so in 2016, when this book came out.
So, 6 months in ‘voluntary unemployment’, as our dear protagonist calls it, having been through a lot of breakthroughs and breakdowns, I decided that the time was right for us, me and the book.
I read it in a day, morning to night.
It was liking reading Bridget Jones, but with fear of disappointing everyone and being stuck in an unsatisfying job instead of the fear of dying alone.
It felt good to be represented as someone who started the first job on an impulse to pay the bills and live the life and ended up staying there way too long. (I felt relieved knowing that I didn’t stay as long as Claire did).
It felt good, knowing that I wasn’t alone or weirdly wired in my struggles with job applications and not being able to muster the energy to simply do it.
It felt good, knowing about hoarding, and how the piles simply represent various emotions we are avoiding or have blocked - sadness, defeat, confusion or sometimes even ambition or hope.
It felt good, knowing that I’m not alone in resenting peers for doing well.
It felt good, knowing that an overwhelmed, over-expecting, and probably overly delusional person feels the same kind of apathy towards daily news and current affairs as I do, despite wanting to keep up with them.
It felt good, reading through daily observations of an idle mind.
Those off-plot ramblings were probably my favorite parts. Might pick up a book of essays by the author, if she decides to write them, just to read more of those.
But amidst all these cleverly written observations and situations that hit home with their relatability accuracy, I found myself waiting for something that never came - Claire’s real issues.
We brush upon vague issues of child abuse, and the 'under-the-rug' coping technique adopted by the family is also way too real. It doesn’t make for a satisfying read as there isn’t enough drama, trauma, blaming or crying around that one incident, but it really shows how these matters are often dealt with in real life.
We brush upon issues with her mother, which don’t go deep. It’s a typical trope of a critical mother and a self-doubting daughter. Also, I would have loved to see some sibling equation too, but it was more or less compensated with comparisons to cousins, so I’m going to let that go.
Soon everything is about Claire’s feelings of insecurity around her boyfriend, and her friends moving into commitments sooner than she is, and becomes less and less about work and status and identity.
We briefly see it being discussed in a conversation with her friend, where Claire mentions that the job she wants has a corner window office and fancy food is available and all that jazz, to which her friend replies, "I think I see where you went wrong. All those vague, title-less jobs have already been taken by characters in New York-based romcoms."
This, I felt was the best lesson I could derive from this book.
Things that really disappointed me:
1. Where is the social media anxiety, the FOMO?
If I REALLY cut it some slack, the book came out in early 2016, back when Instagram still had its old logo, and Instagram stories had not been invented yet. Yeah, seems unimaginable now right? Given that it has become the major FOMO and anxiety causing source amongst its users by giving them the idea that their friends are having a better time, it would have played a really strong plot device in the book. But, even without the stories, social media was going pretty strong in 2016. To eliminate it entirely and have the character physically interact with all of her friends all of the time, seemed a bit more romcom-ish than an actual believable story of a person going through a crisis. THEY WOULDN’T LEAVE THE HOUSE, DAMMIT!
2. Where are confrontations, relationship issues?
The boyfriend character is way too ideal, way too understanding. Hard to believe he was real. Didn’t lash out once.
3. Give me more details of despair and emptiness.
The toughest scenarios of self-doubt and regret over choices, the nights, are skimmed through, with brief mentions of going down internet search spirals.
4. WHERE IS BINGE-WATCHING?????????
I refuse to believe that any person, in this day and age, wouldn’t watch tons of TV if left home alone with zero obligations and responsibilities. I needed a manic episode of realising the audacious amount of lost time watching 10 seasons of total crap, one episode after another. Netflix, streaming, even cable TV watching, was missing and I could not digest it.
In the end I’d just say this:
It felt good, reading through daily observations of an idle mind.
Those off-plot ramblings were probably my favorite parts. Might pick up a book of essays by the author, if she decides to write them, just to read more of those.