Green Dot
Shortlisted for the 2025 British Book Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year
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4.1 • 95 Ratings
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
A BEST BOOK OF 2024 IN STYLIST, DAILY MAIL, THE i PAPER, IRISH TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND RED
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 BRITISH BOOK AWARDS DEBUT FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
'ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS YOU WILL READ ALL YEAR' ELIZABETH DAY
'BRILLIANT. WHAT A WRITER' NIGELLA LAWSON
'INCREDIBLY FUNNY' CAITLIN MORAN
'WONDERFUL' GILLIAN ANDERSON
'THIS YEAR'S SORROW AND BLISS' DAILY MAIL
Hera is in her mid-twenties, which seems young to everyone except people in their mid-twenties.
Since leaving school, she has been trying to kick and scream into existence a life she cares about, but with little success so far.
Until she meets Arthur.
He works with her, he is older than her, he is also married. But in her soulless office - the large cold room she feels destined to spend her life in - he is a source of much-needed sustenance.
And though Hera has previously dated women, she soon falls headlong into a workplace romance that will quickly consume her life.
Laugh-out-loud funny, deeply moving and whip smart, Green Dot is a story about the terrible allure of wanting something that promises nothing and the winding, torturous, often hilarious journey we take in deciding who we are and who we want to be.
'IF YOU LIKED FLEABAG YOU WILL LOVE GREEN DOT' PANDORA SYKES
'YOU'LL TEAR THROUGH THE PAGES' HEAT MAGAZINE
'STAGGERINGLY GOOD AND WICKEDLY FUNNY' THE SATURDAY PAPER
'THE DEBUT OF THE YEAR' i PAPER
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Green Dot is surely not the first coming-of-age story whose protagonist wants it to be a love story. But the remarkable thing about Madeleine Gray’s debut novel—the thing that makes it stand out—is the vividness of that protagonist’s voice. Twenty-something Hera is full of millennial quips and pop-culture references, able to command a room at will, and utterly dissatisfied with adult life; she is smart, good company for both her friends and the reader, and completely lost. As she enters into a relationship with an older, married man, she struggles to grasp, in the moment, whether she is empowered by his lust for her or on the wrong side of a damaging power dynamic. And as their relationship deepens and takes a heavy toll, the book examines how hard it can be to reckon with your own pain, yet all along it is both frank and thoroughly entertaining.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Australian writer Gray debuts with the canny story of a 24-year-old woman struggling to be an adult. Throughout her life, Hera never believed in getting a job. In high school, she was a good student but not well liked, and since college she has been living with her father in Sydney, biding her time until she is forced to support herself. Eventually, she's hired as a "community monitor" for a digital news outlet. During her first week, she's ignored by the office's journalists and counts down the hours as she moderates online comments. Hera's dull routine brightens after an encounter with a manager named Arthur in the elevator, where she decides to "cannonball into conversation." Hoping to make an impression, she asks him, "Who do you hate most in the office?" Arthur responds later via DM, their chatting leads to drinks, and they begin an affair. Hera falls for him and develops an obsession, which only grows stronger as Arthur refuses to leave his wife. Hera is vibrantly written, and Gray thankfully provides her narration with enough distance for self-clarity ("It is possible that my dedication to this relationship was in fact a dedication to my belief in myself"). Gray's unflinching bildungsroman is great fun.
