'Terrific. So funny' Zadie Smith

'Monstrously depressing but so comic and well observed that I didn't really mind .... It is great' Dolly Alderton

'A dark comedy of female rage' Catherine Lacey

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

'Funny, shocking, clever, and hugely entertaining' Roddy Doyle

'A definitive work of milennial literature' Jia Tolentino

'The best thing I've read in years' Emma Jane Unsworth

'Vicious ... hilariously spot on' Guardian



In a windowless office, a woman explains something from her real, nonwork life - about the frustration and indignity of returning her online shopping - to her colleagues. 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?

'Made me laugh and cry enough times to feel completely reborn' The Paris Review

'A definite work of millennial literature. Wretchedly riveting, with the sick, obsessive pleasure of looking under a bandage at a wound' The New Yorker

'So darkly funny and acutely observed that it feels like a documentary' Andrew McMillan

'Anyone who has ever felt like their life is going nowhere - and to make it worse, going nowhere in an achingly slow manner - will recognize themselves' Nylon

"Vicious ... hilariously spot on" - Guardian

"A definitive work of millennial literature" - New Yorker

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

"Made me laugh and cry enough times to feel completely reborn" - The Paris Review

"Anyone who has ever felt like their life is going nowhere - and to make it worse, going nowhere in an achingly slow manner - will recognize themselves" - Nylon

"Halle Butler's slim, acrid novel is a pleasingly cruel glimpse at the world of work and temping." - The New Statesman

"A deliciously dark satire of office life" - Guardian

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

"wake up, look in the mirror, swear it will all be different today. sound familiar? here's that feeling in novel form: meet millie, a 30-year-old flailing around in dissatisfaction. a job offer seems to promise reinvention-but, sadly, easy transformations are for caterpillars, not lonely, anxiety-ridden women" - Elle