She seems to be showing me how to use a paper clip. She holds it in her hand demonstrating both the right and wrong way. Holy absurdity, little side on top, big side on bottom. I guess I did it wrong. I say "Oh okay, that makes sense.""It's a matter of style," she explains. "I totally get it," I say in low tones, soothing and reassuring, nodding, and to keep the indignant scream from leaving my lips, I imagine that she needs to poop all the time. " The New Me] dives deep into the idea of millennial burnout. . . Many readers will identify with Butler’s psychologically astute yet somewhat hopeless inner monologue.”— Mind Body Green The nihilism of The New Me is relentless, but is there a freedom in it? I don't think so, and that is what makes the book so fascinating and so utterly, thoroughly, raw and uncompromising. It's not a comforting read, but it doesn't want to be. It's screaming into the void and aware there will never, ever be a reply. Girls + Office Space + My Year of Rest and Relaxation + anxious sweating = The New Me .” ( Entertainment Weekly )

It's a tension that sort of ends up infecting her body, too — her shoulders are always tight. She's always hunching and it's these little things that just sort of ratchet her up. Masterfully cringe-inducing" ( Chicago Tribune), The New Me is the must-listen new novel by National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree and Granta Best Young American novelist Halle Butler. I'm relieved that Halle Butler's The New Me is the more recent of her two books, because for as much as I loved that book I could not wait to be finished with Jillian. This was a viscerally unpleasant reading experience.A dark comedy of female rage. 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, showing us the futility of betterment in an increasingly paranoid era of self-improvement. Hilarious.”—Catherine Lacey, author of Nobody Is Ever Missingand The Answers

I walk for maybe forty minutes in this circle, until a woman in a polo shirt with a whistle approaches me, smiling. Megan, on the other hand, I did not have as much sympathy for. Maybe it is because she's in her 20s and has her whole life ahead of her and will likely get her shit together. Other than to say...this novel is written with outlandish prose. Definitely dark comedy ....daunting... I’m still trying to make the dream possible: still might finish my cleaning project, still might sign up for that yoga class, still might, still might. I step into the shower and almost faint, an image of taking the day by the throat and bashing its head against the wall floating in my mind. I’m doing well,’ I say, not wanting to stop, feeling myself almost try to walk past her, but her stepping in the way of my path, me pivoting, slowing, reluctant.Millie tells herself she can make a few simple behavior changes. She wasn’t sure she could change her thoughts and opinions, at least not right away, but she felt confident she could change her behavior. Millie is just the kind of misanthropic, hopeful/doomed thirty-year-old we’ve all known, and/or been, and/or loved, and/or hated. Butler is an essential contemporary voice.”— LitHub There are occasionally articles, usually by Gen Xers, about how there's no "definitive" millennial novel. As a Gen Xer, I have to say we're full of it. There are definitive millenial novels out there--and this is one of them. The New Me is about life in a world where "good" is defined and out of reach and all that's left is platitudes. Millie sees this, rages against it, and it seduced and trapped by it all the same.