Jillian - Halle Butler
Apr. 12th, 2019 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troisoiseauxI don’t know if there’s been an uptick in books about misanthropic, self-destructive women who are bad at Adulting or if this is just the year that I keep finding them?
Jillian, by Halle Butler, is a novella about two co-workers – Megan, a directionless, disaffected twenty-something, and Jillian, a single mom in her thirties with a deep belief in faking it until she makes it, inspirational platitudes, and ignoring her problems – who loathe each other so much they can’t see the parallels between their own downward spirals (Megan binge-drinks at house parties she doesn’t want to be at; Jillian takes prescription painkillers for a car accident she wasn’t in) or the festering resentment of the other people in their lives (Megan’s soon-to-be-ex-if-he-can-just-figure-out-how-to-break-it-off boyfriend; the women from Jillian’s church that have realized if you give her an inch she’ll take a mile.)
I liked the use of perspective! It switched, as you’d expect, between Megan and Jillian, but also provided snapshots of the internal lives of the friends-of-friends Megan picks fights with at parties, the judgmental church ladies whose goodwill Jillian is a little too optimistic about, Megan's long-suffering boyfriend, Jillian's eccentric toddler son. As the novel neared its weird, ambiguous end, these shifts in perspective became briefer and more abstract: a drunk couple encountering a raccoon; a bird. The author’s ability to build tension was also really good.
Ultimately, though, this book kind of felt like the emotional equivalent of forgetting to brush your teeth and then having to go about your day with a gross-feeling mouth. The overall vibe was one of negative mundanity; everyone’s interactions were shaded with resentment and hypocrisy. It left me feeling uncomfortable and vaguely sad.
I’ve also been reading Vanity Fair since seeing it as a play at the Shakespeare Theater Company a couple of weeks ago and I’m thoroughly enjoying it, especially how wryly funny and opinionated the narrator is. I’m about 1/4 into the book; so far, the play seems to have been pretty loyal to the source material.
Jillian, by Halle Butler, is a novella about two co-workers – Megan, a directionless, disaffected twenty-something, and Jillian, a single mom in her thirties with a deep belief in faking it until she makes it, inspirational platitudes, and ignoring her problems – who loathe each other so much they can’t see the parallels between their own downward spirals (Megan binge-drinks at house parties she doesn’t want to be at; Jillian takes prescription painkillers for a car accident she wasn’t in) or the festering resentment of the other people in their lives (Megan’s soon-to-be-ex-if-he-can-just-figure-out-how-to-break-it-off boyfriend; the women from Jillian’s church that have realized if you give her an inch she’ll take a mile.)
I liked the use of perspective! It switched, as you’d expect, between Megan and Jillian, but also provided snapshots of the internal lives of the friends-of-friends Megan picks fights with at parties, the judgmental church ladies whose goodwill Jillian is a little too optimistic about, Megan's long-suffering boyfriend, Jillian's eccentric toddler son. As the novel neared its weird, ambiguous end, these shifts in perspective became briefer and more abstract: a drunk couple encountering a raccoon; a bird. The author’s ability to build tension was also really good.
Ultimately, though, this book kind of felt like the emotional equivalent of forgetting to brush your teeth and then having to go about your day with a gross-feeling mouth. The overall vibe was one of negative mundanity; everyone’s interactions were shaded with resentment and hypocrisy. It left me feeling uncomfortable and vaguely sad.
I’ve also been reading Vanity Fair since seeing it as a play at the Shakespeare Theater Company a couple of weeks ago and I’m thoroughly enjoying it, especially how wryly funny and opinionated the narrator is. I’m about 1/4 into the book; so far, the play seems to have been pretty loyal to the source material.
