Millie is thirty years old and spends her days going to a thankless temp job at a designer furniture showroom, watching episodes of Forensic Files on her laptop, and fantasizing about what her new life would actually look like if she actually pulled herself together. She has a friend who is shallow and doesn’t really listen to her, an ex she thinks about too much, and all sorts of ideas for what her life will be like if the temp job becomes permanent. 

‘The New Me’ is a perfect satiric send-up of all those little insecurities that have glimmered in the minds of many of us, and its glaring honesty is on every single page, and it’s also pretty funny. While the book is not an actual ‘stream of consciousness,’ it’s written in a way that demonstrates the way that Millie’s thoughts run from one to another, the way that one anxiety leads to another; this is the absolute genius of this short book, and it reads like the mind of a person trying to figure her crap out (and generally not managing to do so). Not everyone will jive will this style of writing though.

The situations Millie finds herself in, like standing in the break room at work, or being at a party, and dissecting what’s going on, it’s all written so well, and it’s startling and frustrating and even maddening. There are also times when she’s completely oblivious to what is going on around her and she has high hopes for her future; at one point she’s completely got her head in the clouds and gets it all wrong. 

The banality of office work and modern life feature prominently and author Halle Butler paints a pretty depressing picture of it, and she does it so well it’s frightening. Fortunately for Millie, to balance out the uncertainty of work and the emptiness of a false friendship with Sarah, she has loving parents (the scenes with them are lovely) and they are very much her anchors.

In the past, back in my twenties in between freelance film gigs, I did some temp and call center work of my own; this book very much brought back some miserable memories of that time for me. No wonder Millie does so much drinking

This is such a clever little book, honest if depressing, funny although somewhat cautionary (shred the paper when you’re asked to). Definitely a dark comedy.

Disclaimer: based on a NetGalley digital edition

Sense & Sensibility is possibly my favourite Austen novel, but this version just didn't do it for me. I found the old-school shoujo art a little too over the top. It's flowery and expressive to excess, and while it attempts to convey emotion in a story about outward reserve, I felt like it just undercut any gravity or impact in the story. The love interest looked like a child, which was just generally distressing, as well as being unconvincing.

In terms of story, the pace doesn't feel quite as rushed as some of the manga classics, except perhaps at the end. Austen's language is more accessible than some, so I could see this being helpful for hesitant readers or anyone looking for a pretty Coles Notes version of a classic novel.

I've read this while I wasn't active on Booklikes. So I can't remember enough to write a proper review.

Though I still remember that I had fun with it and enjoyed it a lot.

This is quite a good read, full of sweary stuff but well done and interesting and made me want to get more organised and start adulting a bit more.

I read the e-book for this one last summer and to say the least I really enjoyed it. Here's the link to the review I wrote at that time...my thoughts really haven't changed and it's kind of a longish review, so rather than re-post the whole thing I'll just hook you up and you can go see it if you're interested in the long version...

Book Review: Adulting 101

So what's different this time? Why, I listened to the audiobook, of course.

I'm actually rating this one just a bit higher because if anything I enjoyed this a bit more than I when I read the book. Nick J. Russo was the narrator on this one and he totally nailed it for me. Especially Jai's voice it was perfection. His Jai sounded exactly how I imagined Jai would sound. I honestly liked everything about the narration of this book Nick was excellent, as was Devon and well...everyone...

Ok so that gave me a little pause and I just did something I rarely do I took a second and changed my rating from 4.5 to 5 stars because I don't see any reason not to. I loved this story as my original review can attest to and I was totally into the audiobook. Plus I know when I go to post my review in certain other places I don't have 1/2 stars and I'm sure not going to round down on something that I enjoyed this much so really...what am I holding out for? Nothing. It's totally a 5 fun filled stars review on this one.

If you like audiobooks that will make you laugh out loud you seriously need to check this one out...it'll be the last serious thing you do until the book is done.  Along with the mind of an 18 year old male there's mythical, elf, unicorn dick involved here, how can you not want to find out more about that?

********************

An  audio copy of 'Adulting 101' was graciously provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.