For some years of my twenties I was very much in love with a man who would not leave his wife. For not one moment of this relationship was I unaware of what every single popular culture representation of such an arrangement portended my fate to be.
I confess that I had no intention of reading Madeleine Gray’s Green Dot.
Everything I had heard about it made it sound like a book written by a Millennial/Gen Z cusper for her Millennial/Gen Z readers. I was a little curious to see what all the fuss was about, but I had enough books to keep me going, so I was prepared to let this one slide me by.
But then one lunch time at work the book I was planning to read didn’t work out, so I picked up a copy of Green Dot instead…and found myself hugely absorbed and amused by the snarky, snooty, self-conscious voice of Hera – a young woman, aimless and adrift since finishing school, then university, with no specific ideas about what she should do with her life.
I really was not being disingenuous when I said that I had no specific career ambitions. I did not want to have a job. Obviously we would all need money to feed and house ourselves when school was over; I didn’t not foresee that….But why were we all talking like the way we wanted to subsist was via indefinitely spending most of our waking hours doing something with very little relation to the formation and development of ourselves, a development which, until this point, we’d been told by our teachers and parents was very important? Why would anyone dream about having a job?
After completing a couple of arts degrees, she finds herself completely over-qualified for the role as a comment moderator for an online news platform that she takes on due to financial desperation. A deadly dull and depressing job with ‘no achievable goals, no satisfaction: just comment, after comment, after comment.’ Is it any wonder that she succumbs to an in-house romance with the older journalist sitting across from her.
Arthur comes across as being equally adrift and dissatisfied with his lot in life. Things progress as you might expect, but it is only after they sleep together that he tells Hera that he is married and needs to go home before it gets too late.
The rest of the story is about Hera trying to deny the obvious.
One small part of her acknowledges he will never leave his wife, but the bigger part keeps hoping he will. Most of their relationship occurs online, chatting via social media apps, the green dot indicating that one or both of them is active online.
I raced through the first three quarters or so of Green Dot, chuckling to myself about how each generation thinks they have reinvented…well, everything, and that their pop culture references are the funniest, on point expressions of humour ever (just like my Gen X did back in the day). Gray gave me some insights into the lives of our boys and their friends as well as some of my younger colleagues, although thankfully there aren’t any Hera’s in their circle of friends. A little of Hera goes a long way!
Having said all that, I thoroughly enjoyed her deadpan wit, deprecating humour, broad, demanding opinions and sassy ways, until I didn’t.
The last hundred pages or so was a bit of a slog for me. I got tired of Hera’s voice as I sent out silent apologies to all my elders who I inflicted my own twenty-something self upon. It’s a phase we all go through one way or another and most of us mature and grow out of it eventually. But it can be exhausting while it lasts, for everybody concerned.
Gray has created a relatable, yet larger-than-life protagonist. She’s not easy to like with her abrasive, superior comments, yet she is so often laugh-out-loud funny. She’s unfiltered, over the top, yet vulnerable, bouncing from one emotional state to the next, determined to avoid being pigeon-holed by societal norms, even as she finds herself enmeshed in the age-old trope of older married man/young ingenue romance.
What distressed me the most though in the end, was her complete lack of ambition or passion. There didn’t seem to be anything she really wanted to do or create or be. She was obviously intelligent, yet she didn’t want to do anything with her smarts. I found it very frustrating to see such wasted potential. But, of course, she is still young. She has time to find her way, to find a purpose or a passion in life that isn’t simply bound up in loving someone who might love her in return.
One final aside to Hera and her friends about this working life – the work you choose to do and how you actually do it has a HUGE relationship on the formation and development of your character.
Given that most of us don’t want to spend all day, every day growing our own food, making our own clothes and finding shelter for the night, we must work so that someone else can do this for us. Do you really want to spend the eight hours a day you work to be ‘dead’ hours where you just exist and get through? What does that say about you as a person, if you’re prepared to waste those eight hours of your life?
I was fortunate enough to have a kind mentor say to me in my teen years, when I was finding my after school/weekend supermarket job a bit of drag, that it was my choice how those hours at work passed. I could be a misery guts or I could embrace the experience. Every job/career has its good bits and its dull bits – even supermarket checkout work. Take pride in what you do, find the things you’re good at and do them well. It doesn’t matter if no-one else notices or cares – you will. You can finish work every day knowing you did your best and made a difference – all of which helps the time go by faster. It’s an attitude I have carried with me my whole life. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, do the very best you can, for your own sake, for your own personal development. It’s your time, your life, make it work for you.
Epigraph: Hera Lindsay Bird | Monica
I am falling in love and I don’t know what to do about it/Throw me in a haunted wheelbarrow and set me on fire
ISBN: 9781761068614
Imprint: Allen & Unwin
Published: 3rd October 2023
Format: Trade paperback
Pages: 376
Dates Read: 19th January - 18th March 2024
| This post was written on the traditional land of the Wangal clan, one of the 29 clans of the Eora Nation within the Sydney basin. This Reading Life recognises the continuous connection to Country, community and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They are the traditional custodians of the lands, seas, and skies on which we live and they are this nations first storytellers. |
This Reading Life 
I’d written this one off as yet another overhyped novel but your review’s made me reconsider, and I do like a snarky narrator.
Wise words from your mentor! I was very fortunate to land eventually in work that I loved after years of doing something I didn’t.
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During my teens and early twenties I did all sorts of weird and wonderful jobs and always found something about them that I enjoyed – even if it was just working out a system to streamline one of the boring processes. When I started my teaching career there was much to love and feel passionate about, but there were also days when it was a slog. I get that some jobs come with toxic colleagues or cultures, which is a different scenario entirely, but I even found sitting on a busy intersection counting cars one day for the Roads Authority an interesting experience. Every time I visit my parents to this day and drive around the roadabout that was built after my counting day, I claim credit for it 😀
I often wonder what it is about some books/authors that brings on the over-hyped factor? What does the publicist and/or author do that other books don’t?
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That’s a great attitude! I did a lot of scuzzy jobs when I was young, knowing they were just temporary. It’s helped me understand what it might be like for other, less fortunate workers.
I’ve spent many years working in the book trade but some aspects of publishing still remain a mystery to me!
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I have been hearing good things about this one and your review makes me want to look this up for sure. I can somewhat relate to Hera’s dilemmas about work/what to do–at times when I start considering things from the meaning the hold or the value they bring, I can get as sceptical as so much feels pointless.
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Existential angst was a big part of my twenties and thirties; I sometimes wonder if that’s why I tried to keep myself so busy! I read a lot of philosophy (the Stoics in particular) during this phase and tried all sorts of things like meditation, past life regression therapy, art classes, counselling, various short courses, exercise….
I learnt something about myself from all of them, although it has only been meditation that I return to whenever life gets chaotic. On the pointless days I remind myself that I need to eat and have shelter for the night and drag myself off to work. Now I tend to think the only point is to be the best person you can be, after all that is the only thing you have any control over.
As I’ve got older I have learnt to appreciate and enjoy a slower approach to life, living in the moment, mindfully. It’s still a work in progress though 🙂
Good luck with your search for meaning Mallika ❤
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Thanks Brona;
I think what I struggle with is the value seemingly attached to pointless things and little to what seems to have meaning. Be it social complexities, ever increasing and needing ‘experts’ to resolve or at times unnecessary or disproportionate focus on personal glory (which may make no real difference–I mean, for instance, though I mean no offence to the achievements of those that do it, does it really make a difference whether one climbs the highest mountain or not?) or all the bitterness and negativity one finds in workspaces or politics or society in general. On the other (no intention here to be saintly), may be being able to help someone (animal/human) who needs it even in the smallest of ways seems to feel more valuable than these other things.
I absolutely agree with the slower approach to life–I’ve consciously been trying to stay away from the ‘rat race’, and hope to keep things that way.
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I don’t think this one is for me, although you do make the narrative voice sound good at least.
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I haven’t read this book (in fact, I hadn’t even heard of it; I’m in the U.S.), so I’m completely speculating here. One of the concepts always in the back of my mind when reading fiction is the sweet spot between the 2 aspects, character and plot. I greatly favor character over plot, but this book sounds like the story of a character in search of a plot. A compelling narrative voice can go a long way, but it does need to GO somewhere. Thanks for your review.
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I’m not sure Green Dot has US distribution….just did a quick check and yes it is now out in the US too through Henry Holt – same cover as the UK.
“This book sounds like the story of a character in search of a plot.” this gave me a good chuckle! And I guess it depends on how broadly you define plot.
I tend to prefer character books too and this character is not so much in search of a plot, but a purpose.
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What a great thoughtful review. I do not think I will read this book, but I found myself nodding my head to everything you said. I too send my apologies to my elders, when I hear the voices of a sassy know it all 22. I was there and I was them (Sigh!) This lack of a career aspiration is a very GenZ phenomena. I have many in my team, brilliant creative individuals who are doing the job, but really don’t see it as life defining aspect. As a South Asian brought up on the steady diet of “brilliant career or crash’ ideology, I must own I admire their perspective not thinking of a job as a be all and end all part of their lives or even deriving their life meaning or goal from that. Having said that, I completely agree with you since we cannot grow our own food everyday, we must have jobs and we have to find some degree of discipline and joy out of it!
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It’s a real balance. Letting work completely dominate your life as the be-all and end-all is not a healthy thing either.
But anything you do for eight hours a day five days a week will define you somehow. You might as well find something to enjoy or get out it rather than resenting it the whole time (which isn’t to say I haven’t railed against this working life at different times in my life! I am defintiely no saint.) But there’s always something you can take pride in, even if it’s only how effectively you can pack a grocery bag 🙂
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What a thoughtful review, I found myself laughing along (I send silent apologies to my parents too!) and nodding along – it is a generation that’s been told to value their personal development and individuality, but we all have to do things we don’t necessarily want to. Wise words from your mentor and very true about finding the joy in the mainstream.
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i adore this wow!!! amazing blog
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