I have never finished a book in one sitting (and I still haven't) but if any book could convince me to do so, it's this book. I devoured it in two days and I want MORE from this author. I had no idea this was her first novel and I am a bit surprised as her voice is so definitive. Her humor disarmed me multiple times and I found myself really rooting for the narrator even though her complicated life decisions sometimes made me cringe inside. Her ability to call out the absurdities of our lives was so refreshing. I cannot wait to read her next book!

Good writing with a good start, but then it got away from me. I was not a big fan of some of the characters and it wasn't a book I reached for consistently. It was a bit of a chore.

Content warning:

- Alcoholism
- Disordered eating
- Intimacy
- Mental illness
- Pregnancy
- Suicidal ideation

Hera is our main character in Green Dot, and she’s an anti-capitalist who has recently finished her advanced degrees and is staring down a lifetime of work. Though she hates the idea of work with a passion, she still ends up applying for a job at a news station, where she moderates the comments under online articles.

Shortly after starting in the role, Hera falls in love with a coworker, and the rest of the novel explores how love can lead you to sacrifice yourself in the worst of ways. It’s exploration of growing up, sexuality, and how to manage our relationships with others is engaging, and the writing is fluid and gives the character a unique voice.

If you read Green Dot and you enjoyed it, you may also like:

- Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin
- Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
- The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane

Hera Stephen is a quirky and insistent anti-capitalist, who spends a majority of her life after high school avoiding the inevitable time when she’ll have to join the workforce. She pursues degree after degree, until she ends up living with her dad, needing a job. Though it physically pains her to do so, she sends out her application to a comment moderator job at a media organization.

To Hera’s surprise and dismay, she’s hired for the role, and when she shows up for her first day on the job, she finds that the comment moderators are relegated to a certain part of the office, and expected not to interact with the journalists or other “important” people. Her boss, Alison, is weird and overbearing, but her colleague Mei Ling has the same kind of dry humor as Hera, which makes the job more tolerable.

Hera pushes through the monotony at the office, continuously commenting on how horrible the whole thing is. The only upside of the situation is that she can now join in on work-related complaining with her friends, Soph and Sarah.

In the elevator one day, Hera runs into a journalist, and in a moment of bravery, asks him who he hates most in the office. He’s baffled at first, but later mouths “Doug” to her, which gets the ball rolling on their relationship.

They begin to chat at work, trading witty banter and getting to know each other better. One day, after a bunch of coworkers go out for drinks, the journalist, Arthur, and Hera end up getting a meal together after. Though they go home separately after that, it’s not long before they sleep together.

Immediately after Hera invites Arthur into her bedroom at her dad’s house, she discovers he’s married because of a call from his wife. Hera isn’t as concerned about this turn of events as you might think, and instead tells Arthur that she’s serious about their relationship.

Though Arthur promises Hera he’s going to split up with his wife, he comes up with reasons why it’s just not the right time to do so. Hera continues to believe him for a while, until one night when Arthur says he’ll meet her, but leaves her waiting in a park instead. After this happens, Hera decides it’s time to take extreme action, and looks for a job in the UK.

Hera tells her friends about Arthur’s unfortunate situation, and they commiserate with her, until they find out that Hera’s still seeing him. The longer they continue to see one another, the more uncomfortable Hera’s friends become with the idea.

She finds one, and tells Arthur that she’s leaving because he won’t leave his wife. He begs her not to go, but she’s trying to do what’s best. Hera goes to London and hates every minute of it. She struggles to make friends and finds herself thinking about Arthur all the time. When he messages her on her birthday, the doors are open again, and the two begin messaging like they were before. This is when Hera discovers that Arthur’s wife is pregnant, but Arthur says he’ll still leave his wife, and that Hera can even be a step-mother to the baby.

Right around this time is when COVID hits, and Hera suffers alone in her apartment for some time before caving and going back home. When she arrives in Australia again, she and Arthur reconnect. They continue to talk about how Hera can be a step-mother for the baby, and Hera gives Arthur an ultimatum: he has to leave his wife by the end of the year.

On New Year’s Eve, Hera prepares a cake and plans to celebrate with Arthur after he tells his wife about the affair, but he shows up at her apartment, saying he was unable to do it. She pushes the issue, saying that he has to tell his wife. Then, when Arthur does, his wife asks him to stay, and he does.

Hera is crushed when she realizes that she’s not a special mistress who will actually end up with the man, but instead one of the many who believe falsely that it will happen for them. She breaks it off, permanently, with Arthur. Her friends are happy to hear it, and welcome her back into the social life she abandoned to spend all her time with Arthur.

At the end of the book, Hera is approached by an adorable little girl, and when she looks up, she sees Arthur, who attempts to reconnect with her. Hera rebuffs him, asking if he’s left his wife, and he says that he has not. She finally sees through his veneer of being the perfect, honest man, and realizes that he doesn’t care how much he hurts her by continuing on with the relationship, only that he loves her and wants to have both things at once.

Okay, so now that you know all about what happens in Green Dot, let’s get into some of my thoughts on this book.

The first thing to know about this one is that it’s *not* a feel-good book, at all. I think it’s very by design that the first happy moment the character experiences is immediately squashed by the phone call from Arthur’s wife, and how he leaves as soon as he gets it. Him leaving right after them being together is a pattern that repeats throughout the book.

Speaking of Arthur leaving, this leads me to my next thought about this book, which I’m kind of torn about. On one hand, it is *so* incredibly frustrating to watch Hera make her choices in this one. What would have been most satisfying to read probably includes Hera getting out of bed as soon as she realizes Arthur is married, telling him off, and going to the wife shortly after to tell her about what her husband has done.

But—this book isn’t about what is satisfying, and instead depicts a much more realistic picture of what people are like, and how they can continue to choose the wrong thing, over and over, even when they’re shown and told it’s the worst possible choice.

So I’m torn about it because it was incredibly frustrating, but almost in a good way, like a metaphorical car wreck (because I would not actually feel that way about a real car wreck).

I did like our main character, and there are a few reasons for this. First, I think Hera was very funny, and that comes through in the narrative style. We see it in her interactions with her friends, her dad, and even with Arthur. I also share a lot of the same views with Hera, including not at all wanting to spend the rest of my life in an office, but finding that might happen anyway.

Speaking of her dad, he was one of my favorite characters in this one. There’s something satisfying about how steady and supporting he was, even when watching his daughter continue to pursue a married man. He never criticizes her, and instead is there for her, even when she makes poor decisions that hurt him specifically.

Hera’s friends are also a strong point in this book. I feel they could have been used as an element of drama, choosing to leave her when finding out about her affair, but instead they stay by her side. The book does something interesting here, showing how even though Hera does have a support system, she chooses not to use it when she needs it most.

I also appreciate both the cover and the title of this one. Green Dot refers to the online symbol Hera stares at when trying to see if she can chat with Arthur on Instagram, but it’s got other associations as well. It makes me think of a green light at a traffic stop, and how it’s contradictory to what Arthur does to Hera, as he seems to stop her life completely. The title may also be a reference to the green light in The Great Gatsby, which he is always looking at as he thinks of Daisy.

Overall, I thought Green Dot was an interesting, if depressing, read, and I gave it a four-star rating because I enjoyed it and would recommend it to a friend but I wouldn’t read it again.

Green Dot is the story of a young woman named Hera who simply does not want a career. Despite this, she takes a job moderating comments online. At this job she meets a 40 year old, married man named Arthur who she begins an affair with and falls deeply in love. Green Dot gave me every emotion. I oscillated between happiness and laugher to profound sadness. Hera was such a likable, funny, and challenging character. I truly rooted for her even when I disagreed with her choices. She felt to me, like a real friend. I could not put this book down. The writing was so engaging. I will be recommending this book to everyone I know.

*3.5*
This book dives into a lot of topics and emotions many women in their 20s feel. Even though Hera the main character was not particularly likeable to me, you cannot help but root for her in figuring out her life. I liked how this book was realistic about the role social media can play in relationships, as well as integrating the pandemic into the timeline, without it ruining the vibe of the book. Even though I relate to the feeling of being lost there were points in the book where I wanted to throw my kindle across the room because GIRL WTF?!

is one of those books I requested based on a whim and while I expected to hate the protagonist Hera, because the synopsis makes it clear that she knowingly has an affair with a married senior coworker, I found her surprisingly relatable.

This is definitely one for those who find a 9-5 job boring, and the fact that it’s narrated in hindsight makes her journey with the job front as well as her affair bittersweet as fascinating as she deromantizes certain aspects of the two. It was one of those “just one more chapter” books! The author just has a distinct narrative style that kept me engaged, plus the talent it takes to write a book just long enough on this subject is 🤌🏼 A worthy read for all contemporary fiction readers. Full review to come on blog.

Thank you to Henry Holt & NetGalley for the ARC! Green Dot has skyrocketed to the top of my list of favorites for this year. Unequivocally witty and inevitably tragic, Green Dot is equal parts an ode to the devastation of our social environment amidst capitalism and what is born from our attempts to survive it. Hera is in her early twenties living with her father when she lands a vacuous and utterly menial job (aren't they all!) as a comment moderator.

I loved the way Gray wrote Hera's online search for a job, likening the job offer to a boulder for which everyone needs and yet no one actually knows what to do with when granted. There's a certain banality to the narrative of Hera's first week at her new job: we as readers are bored alongside her, mentally taxed by descriptions of the frigid office and its occupants, frantic for something, anything, to happen. And eventually, when it does, just like Hera, we are consumed by the excitement, the sense of finality, the feeling of "Yes, finally, I've been waiting for you."

But what ensues is not entirely a love story between Hera and Arthur. He's twice her senior and has been married for nearly the same amount of years that Hera has been alive. It would be more accurate to say that the eventual gratification of someone appearing to cause interest is less about the person they are and more so about the fantasy they contribute to. Hera has this striking line where she thinks: "Maybe I gave him too much credit from the beginning. But what is lust if not generosity preserving? I wanted him to be what I needed, and so that is what he became."

This is what I love so deeply about this book. It has pieces of some of my favorite novels like Luster by Raven Leilani and Acts of Desperation from Megan Nolan. There is a beauty in writers illustrating the ecstasy of projecting a fantasy, the delusion behind infatuation, desiring something / someone so desperately that it feels almost transcendent. Chelsea Hodson once wrote, "Suffering feels religious if you do right." For the majority of this book, we see Hera master the piety in agony, the unearthly shame that infatuation begets.

She waits in parks at the dead of night, books hotel rooms and Airbnbs on her card, skips out on her loved ones at the off-chance that this man will message her and ask to meet up on the spot. She stares long and hard at the green dot of Arthur's online status like it's the pupil of his eye, waiting for the ellipses of his potential words to appear. It's awful and she knows that it's awful, but yearning is an infant that can never be put down, a child that refuses to be appeased.

People will complain that Hera is pathetic, self-involved, deplorable — but haven't we all been? Hera is one of the most realistic characters that I've read in recent years, because she portrays a sense of longing that is undeniably raw and lucid and pitiful. It's like a car crash I can't look away from, a wound that I'll never let scar. I'm so sad that I finished this book, but I will think of it for a long, long time.

I tore through this one. My heart broke for Hera, a flawed but endearing and funny twenty-something who makes one of the oldest mistakes in the books: falling for a man who promises to leave his wife. We are all screaming from her future: "he will never, ever leave her for you, babe!" but sometimes you just have to let it play out. Hera makes all kinds of missteps, primarily discounting those in her life who love her most and show up consistently for her, but her foibles are entirely believable. My heart was ripped right out when the inevitable happened, despite knowing from the beginning what was coming for her.

Hera is in her early 20's, lives with her dad, and doesn't have much going for her. When she starts a new job, she catches the eye of an older man. I was not the audience for this book about someone young in Australia making poor life decisions. Not a terrible book, just not for me.

If you’re someone who has to like or morally align with a protagonist, you should probably avoid this book. But what fun are likable characters anyway?

Green Dot follows Hera’s inner monologue as she begrudgingly enters the workforce behind the rest of her peers, meets an older male (and married) colleague, and begins an office romance/affair. It’s full of dark humor and questionable decision making as Hera works to figure out exactly what she wants out of life and love.

You’ll enjoy it if you’re game for a character-driven narrative with imperfect characters and a quotable yet sarcastic writing style.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!*

This was hilarious and painfully relatable. It really captured being in your mid-twenties and thinking you've got it figured out but also being a mess. I am not saying I support her decisions but also...I get it.

Bitingly specific yet humanly universal, Green Dot takes us where we don’t want to go but hooks us into getting there from the very first page. A debut novel about love vs. delusion, what it means to truly see ourselves and choices we’re faced with in becoming “adults”.

Hera will become your twenty-four year old unfiltered millennial bestie. She is intensely self-aware of every area of her life, except her love life (not relatable in the slightest…) This journey is desperately painful for the reader but aren’t we all slightly delusional within our own heads/worldviews/lives?

The intimacy of Hera’s inner monologue is what kept this novel relevant to me even though her decision to continue to date a man once she’s found out he’s married (Hello average Aruthur 👋🏼) did notttt sit well with me.

This book will speak to anyone who:
has felt lost in the tide of oncoming adulthood,
has desperately wanted to be loved in the midst of not really knowing who they are,
likes jarring jabs of introspection mixed with humor.

I hate to rate this book so low, because I was really looking forward to it! Gen Z girl trying to find her place in the corporate world? Excelling in school but struggling with "adulting?" Navigating identity and messy relationship dynamics, while also feeling disillusioned by it all? Wanting to find love and connection...but with someone who can never fully want her in return? GREEN DOT sounded right up my alley. Sadly, I just couldn't fully get into this one. I was also disappointed with how quickly the story's "humor" veered into insensitivity, sounding disrespectful rather than "darkly hilarious" as the synopsis describes. Within the first 10% or so of the book, our MC compares getting an office job to going to an abortion clinic "because everyone seems sadly determined to gain entry to another room that will take something from them." And when a coworker gives her a tour, Hera describes her as having "the embodied exhaustion of a Holocaust museum tour guide." There are several instances of these types of remarks (at least in the version I read).

Beyond that, I wished both Hera and Arthur had a little more depth. I usually enjoy characters who are unlikeable and make frustrating decisions, so that wasn't an issue for me at all, but here I just couldn't feel fully invested in them or their relationship. I thought there were so many interesting aspects to Hera's character, like her family life, that I would have liked to see get even more development. I really enjoyed reading about her relationship with her dad (he and the dog, Jude, were the best characters!), and would have liked to see more of those moments, but also wanted to know more about her relationship (or lack thereof) with her mom. Overall, I love some good sad girl litfic, but unfortunately, GREEN DOT just fell a little flat for me. However, if you're also a fan of those types of books, you might feel differently! Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the ARC.

Young girl meets older married man who happens to also be her coworker,,, a tale as old as time...

The way that I lovvvveedddd this book. The witty commentary... the relatable content... the gorgeous one liners... I loved this. It made me laugh and it made me feel some deep feels... Gray really nails it with the employment search struggles, workplace woes, and "relationship" blues. I can't imagine someone not relating to at least pieces of this. Unfortunately for me... I related to a whole hell of a lot LOL

the writing was difficult because it’s all from hera’s perspective and hera is (very) delusional and (insanely) self absorbed.
its very much written as a streamline of her thoughts, which was confusing because she drops random anecdotes and opinions that just get redundant and hinder the flow. i can concede that this was done to prove a point, but she was “self aware” to the point where the concept itself lost all meaning and her thought process becomes a repetitive, annoying cycle.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6261454510

I would like to thank NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co for providing me with an advance e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. Look for it in your local and online bookstores and libraries on February 27, 2024.

I loved it. Maybe because Hera was working within Communications (me core) or maybe because she uses her dark humor to cope with her trying to figure out what she wants. Hera and the plot is super relatable for any post-grad trying to figure out when it's time to "grow up" or what it even means to start doing so.

The first half of this book sucked me in. I was drawn to Gray’s writing style and her ability to convey Hera’s feelings and emotions to the reader through inner dialogue. In many ways, I related to Hera and her inability to see herself in the never ending grind of work life as an adult.
My feelings of relating to Hera did end when she knowingly continued her relationship with Arthur after learning he was married and had not yet left his wife. I was especially appalled when they stayed together after learning that Kate was pregnant.
However, while I was completely disgusted with the behavior, I found myself consistently needing to know what happened to them next. Madeleine Gray’s writing kept me engrossed in a story that I normally would have no interest in. I was also proud of Hera’s growth in the end, though I wish she would have made better decisions earlier on. However, the blame is still on Arthur, and I’m glad that Gray maintained that sentiment in the end.

I loved this book. You will love it, too if you relate to Hera. She is the one telling the story. Hera is 24 and a bit adrift, she has 3 art degrees, but she just isn’t that excited at her job prospects. She knows it’s time to finally get a Real Job, and well being a Communications Moderator is a mind-numbing and useless job. How will she possibly endure this? Fortunately, Hera gets through life with her sarcastic dark humor. She starts making jokes with her fellow worker, Mei Ling. It is quite funny, and right away Heda was my girl that I would route for.

Then things get much more complicated. She starts messaging Arthur, an older journalist and they start being a little flirty, then that moves to drinks with colleagues, and next are alone at Hera’s. Right away, she finds out he is married. Hera knows she should end it, but deep down she knows this guy is different. She has dated both guys and girls, but it never meant much to her. Arthur she has intense feeling for and when they talk about it, so does he. This is not just going to be a fling or a short romance. No, both say they are all in. Hera has been feeling depressed and unsure how to get on track with her life. It is completely understandable at her young age. I think before Arthur, she would roll her eyes if you asked her if she be with a married man. She does worry about the effects this will have on Arthur, his wife, and at the bottom of the heap, herself. Yet, she tells us she is not going to walk away. Many more incidents happen and she tells Arthur she needs time to think it over, but she knows she is not leaving this relationship. It comes to completely define her.

Hera wants something more out of life. This is it, she is intoxicated on love. I could understand that and felt for her. It’s easy to say something is completely wrong, but when you love someone deeply, you lose site of that. So, I wanted Hera to be happy. I wanted her to have the future both her and Arthur were planning. She even admits maybe she just wanted to achieve something, that someone would give up all the things she wanted and do this just to be with her. It satisfies her sense of purpose and she will feel safe, secure, and loved as she always wanted. Hera makes many mistakes trying to get this to work. She is lucky she has her friends Soph and Sarah to listen and ground her, but they are not going to change her thinking.

At 24, you are just stepping into yourself and meeting someone older who is smart and accomplished, well I get that. Hera is also very intelligent herself and she is funny. The book made me laugh so much and then I’d cry with Hera. It made me remember being that young and how the world seems a little simpler. Pushing Hera’s sarcasm aside is easy, she’s just using it to cope. Deep down, and you really don’t have to dig far, she wants to be accepted, accomplished, and loved. It moved me so much more then I expected.

This is Madeleine Gray’s first novel and she does a fantastic job with it. Best debut I’ve read this year by far.

Thank you NetGalley, Madeleine Gray, and Henry Holt & Company for granting this book to me. I always leave reviews of books I read.

This wasn't for me but those closer in age to Hera will no doubt find some if not much of her experience and angst relatable. A 20-something woman living in Sydney who is wandering through life and having an affair with a married man-whose wife is pregnant- is not a likable character but she makes sharp observations. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.