The New Me

In a windowless office, women stand in a circle. One explains something from her real, nonwork life - about the frustration and indignity of returning an item she bought online. One wears a topknot. Another checks her pedometer.

Watching them all is Millie. Thirty-years-old and an eternal temp, she says almost nothing, almost all of the time.

But then the possibility of a permanent job arises. Will it bring the new life Millie is envisioning - one involving a gym membership, a book club, and a lot less beer and TV - finally within reach? Or will it reveal just how hollow that vision has become?

“Halle Butler is a first-rate satirist of the horror show being sold to us as Modern Femininity . She is Thomas Bernhard in a bad mood, wearing ill-fitting tights, scrutinizing old take-out leftovers. THE NEW ME shows us the futility of betterment in an increasingly paranoid era of self-improvement, one in which the female body is grated into little bloody empowered bits of itself. A dark comedy of female rage. Fucking hilarious .”

A definitive work of millennial literature - New Yorker

Brilliant. For fans of Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Funny, shocking, clever, and hugely entertaining

Vicious ... hilariously spot on - Guardian

The best thing I've read in years. A dark delight. Viciously funny. Brilliantly subversive. - Emma Jane Unsworth

Halle Butler is a first-rate satirist of the horror show being sold to us as Modern Femininity. She is Thomas Bernhard in a bad mood, wearing ill-fitting tights, scrutinizing old take-out leftovers. THE NEW ME shows us the futility of betterment in an increasingly paranoid era of self-improvement, one in which the female body is grated into little bloody empowered bits of itself. A dark comedy of female rage. Fucking hilarious.

THE NEW ME renders contemporary American life in such vivid, stinging color, that certain sentences are liable to give the reader a paper cut. But you'll want to keep on reading anyway. Halle Butler is terrific, and I loved this book.

A cringey book about someone's shitty life that makes you feel infinitely better about your own - Vanity Fair

Halle Butler is a writer living in New York City. Her first novel, Jillian, was called the "feel-bad book of the year" by the Chicago Tribune. Her second novel, The New Me, was named a Best Book of the Decade by Vox and a Best Book of the Year by Vanity Fair, Vulture, Chicago Tribune, Mashable, Bustle, and NPR, and the New Yorker called it a "definitive work of millennial literature." She was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree.

In a windowless office, women stand in a circle. One explains something from her real, nonwork life - about the frustration and indignity of returning an item she bought online. One wears a topknot. Another checks her pedometer.Watching them all is Millie. Thirty-years-old and an eternal temp, she says almost nothing, almost all of the time.But then the possibility of a permanent job arises. Will it bring the new life Millie is envisioning - one involving a gym membership, a book club, and a lot less beer and TV - finally within reach? Or will it reveal just how hollow that vision has become?

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