Discontent by Beatriz Serrano: book review

Discontent by Beatriz Serrano

Overview: Marisa has a cushy middle management position in the creative department of a swanky agency. She really doesn't have to do much in her job. This is both great and horrible. Great because Marisa isn't interested in doing much but horrible because this thing that defines her provides no fulfillment as she finds the entire corporate world and everyone in it boring and stupid. Marisa spends the entire novel just hoping to get hit by a bus as she endures the hot August Madrid days going into the office. Overall: 3.5

Characters: 4 I don't disagree with Marisa. I enjoyed her disaffected, snarky voice in general. I did, ultimately, struggle with the fact that she thinks she's so much smarter than everyone else, inherently better than them, but she chooses to continue working at the same horrible company as the rest of them. She's not actually going to do anything about the fact that she hates her life. She's not repulsed enough to forsake the comforts of it. So, really, she's no better than Natalia who eagerly does her work and derives a sense of self from the ad campaigns. Really, Marisa just lives to watch YouTube and take tranquilizers. And while that's interesting at the beginning, the fact that her character only progresses in meek fits and starts makes it feel old after a while. She eventually learns to despise her coworkers a little less, but there's little growth in Marisa over the course of the novel, and she ultimately leaves the reader with the impression of being a deeply stunted, sad human being. There's not quite the evolution or the emotional impact as in other novels with disaffected characters who despise being corporate drones like Ripe, or in something like My Year of Rest and Relaxation that has the repetitive element but also more internal evolution. The author seems to be in alignment with Marisa's ideals and attitude, but it ultimately has an effect that reminds me somewhat of Perfection where there's a subtle condemnation of this type of person. 

It's the side characters that are actually more interesting. None of them are particularly developed, but they're intriguing ideas. There's Elena, the college friend that returns to Marisa's life at random and reveals she's decided to escape the doom and gloom of having a job by being an escort instead. Her neighbor, Pablo, who also happens to be her situationship of sorts—a very tender hook-up. Everyone is a small glimmer on the page, and they're never quite explored deep enough to give Marisa a chance to develop through them either. 

Plot: 3 It's funny that this is the book I read after listening to my professor go on a monologue about how literary fiction has forsaken the scene. I thought he was being maybe a bit overdramatic, but then, as I was reading this book, I realized he wasn't wrong. There's very little that happens in this book, and it's the kind of "book where nothing happens" that gives that flavor of book a bad name. Nothing happens, not cause we're too busy developing the characters and their emotional world, but because there's simply no engagement with the outside world and we have to granularly detail all the YouTube videos Marisa watches to forget her life and how many times she pops pills. That's gotta be the bulk of the word count. That and banal work experiences, mostly alone in her office. She rarely interacts with anyone, and when she does, the conversations seem fairly pointless. Towards the end, she is forced to actually perform, and it does suddenly bring her closer to her co-workers as she pulls one over on everyone without their knowledge, but there's no tension. There's nothing that made me want to turn the pages. And then the ending... The ending was such a disappointment. It just doubled down on the idea that we didn't manage to go anywhere or learn anything. 

Writing: 3 Serrano is a journalist by trade, and this is her first novel, and that made a lot of sense once I got to the author bio in the back. The writing is quite well done. It captures the feeling of this particular moment of being a youngish adult who works in an office and hates their life. A vague creative. There's nothing wrong with the prose. It's the story bit, the animating force of fiction that makes the form tick that is missing from this novel. And I think that's what's left me so torn about it. In one way, it proves that novels just don't work when they're devoid of tension, scenes, or a true arc, but the prose was interesting enough I found myself entertained until it became too repetitive. Especially at the beginning, I struggled because I didn't mind reading it, but I felt no draw to pick the book up after having to step away from it. I guess I've identified why I felt that way now, but it was a puzzling start to the reading experience. One of those that would've been an excellent short story.