Discontent by Beatriz Serrano

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Discontent by Beatriz Serrano

Literary fiction

Discontent

Debut

by Beatriz Serrano

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Quick take

Daydreaming about burning your workplace to the ground? Pick up this satirical, cathartic corporate novel instead.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, International

    International

  • Illustrated icon, Snarky

    Snarky

  • Illustrated icon, Drugs_and_Alcohol

    Drug & alcohol use

  • Illustrated icon, Under200

    Under 200 pages

Synopsis

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 rapidly risen through the ranks at an advertising agency. And yet she’s drowning in a dark hole of existential dread induced by the expectations 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 taking Valium. When she has the time, she escapes to her favorite museum where she contemplates the meaning of human life while staring at Hieronymus Bosch paintings, or trying to get hit by a car so she can go on disability.

But Marisa’s success, which is largely built on lies and work she’s stolen from other people, is in danger of being unraveled when she’s forced to go on her company’s annual team-building retreat. Isolated in the Spanish mountains, surrounded by a psychopathic boss, overly enthusiastic co-workers who revel in their exploitation, a flirty retreat staff, and haunted by a deeply-buried memory about a past coworker, Marisa is pushed to the brink of a complete spiral.

A darkly funny, provocative, and incisive tale of our modern times, Discontent explores the unease we bury eight hours a day, and how explosive it is when it rises to the surface.

Content warning

This books contains mentions of suicide.

Read a sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Discontent.

Discontent

I

For a brief moment back in 2016, the internet’s obsession was the physical and mental well-­being of an En­glish ­YouTuber named Marina Joyce. Joyce was girlish and princesslike, with long blond ringlets and huge blue eyes, who uploaded innocent videos where she tried on pastel-­colored clothes, opened gifts sent to her by different brands, or ate sweets she thought were exotic because they came from Asia. And because the internet’s blurring of boundaries often means you can’t discern whether you are viewing erotic content or family content (or, perhaps, both at the same time), a widely disparate community followed her—­from little girls who wanted to wear the same pink dresses to bald men in their fifties who probably masturbated to videos of her eating ice cream.

But after a while, her followers began detecting subtle changes in her behavior. In one of her videos, Marina Joyce was at a party, smiling at the camera and showing off her outfit, but something in the way she walked around (languid and listless) or the way she responded to questions (taking about three seconds too long to grasp them) set off all the alarms. This gave rise to a conspiracy theory, according to which Joyce had been kidnapped by her boyfriend or by a cult (it was unclear which) and was being abused and forced to upload videos against her will.

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Read this if you like...


Narrative voices with a cutting-edge sensibility that’s cynical, smart, and internet-literate.


Satirical explorations of contemporary corporate office life, from existential YouTube breaks to mandatory work retreats.


Incisive novels in translation that are both globally resonant and sharply specific.

Member ratings (8)

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Literary fiction
View all
Intermezzo
A Season of Light
Liquid
The Book of George
Real Americans
Dirty Diana
Wellness
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
The God of the Woods
Same As It Ever Was
The Bombshell
Annie Bot
Bear
The Sun Was Electric Light
Mercury
True Biz
Family Happiness
The Lady Waiting
The Other Valley
Hard by a Great Forest
Good Material
The Bullet Swallower
Happy All the Time
Rental House
Alice Sadie Celine
Let Us Descend
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Shark Heart
Transcendent Kingdom
Hello Beautiful
Dominicana
What's Mine and Yours
The Unsettled
Ask Again, Yes
Vladimir
Infinite Country
The Prophets
Normal People
The Verifiers
Salvage the Bones
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
I Have Some Questions for You
Black Buck
The History of Love
Age of Vice
Paper Names
The Light Pirate
The Secret History
Memorial
The Half Moon
Happiness Falls
The Gifted School
The Death of Vivek Oji
The Knockout Queen
Little Monsters
Yerba Buena
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Free Food for Millionaires
A Burning
The Mothers
Small Country
The Sympathizer
Fleishman Is in Trouble
Lot
An American Marriage
The Animators
The Mars Room
Exit West
White Fur
Woman No. 17
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Eat Only When You're Hungry
Rainbirds
A Ladder to the Sky
Golden Child
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P
The Association of Small Bombs
Lolly Willowes
All Grown Up
Marlena
Signal Fires
Woman of Light
Marrying the Ketchups
The Shards
Blue Sisters
Andromeda
Among Friends
Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar
Seduction Theory
Discontent