3.5
Discontent
ByPublisher Description
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE • From a dazzling new international voice, an audacious, darkly funny novel about a young woman whose carefully crafted office persona threatens to crack when she’s forced to attend her company’s annual retreat
"A wry work of spectacular wit. . . . Beatriz Serrano writes with a caustic flare for detail, exploring the small humiliations of the everyday corporate office with charm and utter hilarity. Absolutely brilliant." —Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution
On the surface, Marisa's life looks enviable. She lives in a beautiful apartment in the center of Madrid, she has a hot neighbor who is always around to sleep with her, and she’s quickly risen through the ranks at a successful advertising agency. And yet she’s drowning in a dark hole of existential dread induced by the banality of corporate life. Marisa hates her job and everyone at it. She spends her working hours locked in her office hiding from her coworkers, bingeing YouTube videos, and getting high on tranquilizers. When she has the time, she escapes to her favorite museum where she contemplates the meaning of life while staring at Hieronymus Bosch paintings, or trying to get hit by a car so she can go on disability.
But Marisa's dubious success, which is largely built on lies and work she's stolen from other people, is in danger of being exposed when she's forced to go on her company’s team-building retreat. Isolated in the Segovia forests, haunted by the deeply buried memory of a former coworker, and surrounded by psychopathic bosses, overzealous coworkers, flirty retreat staff, and an excess of drugs, Marisa finds herself acting on her wildest impulses and is pushed to the brink of a complete spiral.
"A wry work of spectacular wit. . . . Beatriz Serrano writes with a caustic flare for detail, exploring the small humiliations of the everyday corporate office with charm and utter hilarity. Absolutely brilliant." —Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution
On the surface, Marisa's life looks enviable. She lives in a beautiful apartment in the center of Madrid, she has a hot neighbor who is always around to sleep with her, and she’s quickly risen through the ranks at a successful advertising agency. And yet she’s drowning in a dark hole of existential dread induced by the banality of corporate life. Marisa hates her job and everyone at it. She spends her working hours locked in her office hiding from her coworkers, bingeing YouTube videos, and getting high on tranquilizers. When she has the time, she escapes to her favorite museum where she contemplates the meaning of life while staring at Hieronymus Bosch paintings, or trying to get hit by a car so she can go on disability.
But Marisa's dubious success, which is largely built on lies and work she's stolen from other people, is in danger of being exposed when she's forced to go on her company’s team-building retreat. Isolated in the Segovia forests, haunted by the deeply buried memory of a former coworker, and surrounded by psychopathic bosses, overzealous coworkers, flirty retreat staff, and an excess of drugs, Marisa finds herself acting on her wildest impulses and is pushed to the brink of a complete spiral.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesDiscontent Reviews
3.5
“A rambling (funny) introspective about work and other societal systems. I enjoyed that while it was quirky and unhinged at times, it all worked out for her. A different take than the usual cringe and consequence. Then there was the ending, that while it wasn’t particularly “happy”, it fit so well.”
“Un libro bastante atrevido sobre una mujer que se pasa de la raya en su entorno de trabajo; y la apoyamos en eso.
La historia se centra mucho en este ambiente de oficina monótona tipo Severance, pero mucho más permisivo o abierto —por decirlo de alguna manera—, pues la protagonista no está cargada de trabajo y se puede poner videos de Youtube en horario laboral como si nada y luego continuar con lo suyo sin estar con la soga al cuello por las deadlines. No he sentido realmente que ella, Marisa, le tenga aversión u odio al trabajo; en parte parece que aunque no le gusta lo puede soportar, pero es el ambiente lo que la frena y eso la lleva a drogarse con medicación para la ansiedad. La verdad en eso sí me he identificado mucho, como mujer con Asperger el masking es devastador y es lo que me suele agotar más o hacerme replantear si seguir o no con proyectos (menos mal que aún no tengo edad para trabajar y tener que aguantar fingir todo el tiempo no querer estar en cierto sitio haciendo ciertas cosas, y si me llega a tocar "jugar a las oficinas" me lanzo yo misma contra un repartidor en moto) y por eso he sentido la lectura como una experiencia tan real.
Marisa me parece un poco plana, no tiene nada que la haga resaltar realmente con luz propia, y brilla por sus relaciones con otros personajes (Elena, Rita, su situationship del tercero...); igual se hace una muchacha muy divertida y que, para bien de ambas, tuvo su final feliz. Un buen cierre, casi esperanzador; ha conseguido su objetivo.
Es libre.”
“I really enjoyed this one! I went into it without reading the premise and was pleasantly surprised. I feel like it greatly captured the mundanity of life and the ways in which we can put a mask over one area of our life.
I also really liked the ending with the staff retreat. It was LOL funny while also having a darker reflection on company culture.”
About Beatriz Serrano
Beatriz Serrano is a writer and a journalist who has written for publications such as BuzzFeed, Vanity Fair, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, El País, SModa and Vogue. Along with writer Guillermo Alonso, she currently co-directs the podcast "Arsenic Caviar", which won the Ondas Prize for best conversational podcast. Discontent is her first novel. She lives in Madrid.
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