Thank you Transport for London for introducing me to Not Working, Lisa Owens with their first class advertisements.
It was sitting on my bookshelf for maybe 6 months before I decided to read this, and gosh, I wish I had read it sooner.
The plot:
Claire Flannery, the protagonist of Not Working, leaves her job in marketing to find her true calling, and expects this quite imminently. Oh Claire, we wish it was that easy. We follow Claire on a bumpy road with new challenges arising every day.
The procrastinating tasks of keeping in contact with family and friends, cleaning and posting a parcel becomes a paradox.
We meet Luke, Claire’s partner, who works as a trainee brain surgeon, who has quite clearly already found his calling. With this in mind, Claire briefly looks into different occupations (fuelled by those ‘find your perfect career’ quizzes we all, well and truly, love) motivated by her grandmother and father’s fond words, “I need to think what I do is worthwhile”, in a wine-induced conversation with her friend.
We find this book so relatable because in some way or another, we’ve all been in Claire’s situation – maybe not quitting our job to later be made redundant by the same company, but taking time off to get something done, and finding we achieve less or end up procrastinating to the point of no return. Fellow students, you’ve been there.
“There are so many times where I imagined myself being a fly on the wall”
As a reader, you genuinely feel part of Claire’s life. There are so many times where I imagined myself being a fly on the wall, laughing, grimacing and showing empathy alongside the main character.
It’s a light read, so definitely something you can pick up and put down at any time. Audience wise, it is written for a female audience between ages 20-35.
Think: Bridget Jones struggling to find her true calling.
Bookmark that. Although, I highly wouldn’t recommend reading this on a 15-minute tube journey where you can accidentally laugh out loud (or snort, in my case) and end up being judged by many.
If you liked this book, try Let Me Tell You a Story, Katie Miller.
Not Working, Lisa Owens, RRP £7.99/£12.99 (paperback/ hardback); Waterstones
