Green Dot Review

I spoke about this book in the video about what I read in February 2024 and about all the reasons I really disliked ‘Green Dot’. This month I got more into audiobooks, especially since I got Spotify premium. On one hand, I was glad I was able to listen to this, as I was able to rush the speed to 2.0 at times, but on the other I am disappointed I spent my credits on it. I absolutely despised this book, mostly because of the main character and her narration, but I also did not find anything even close to redeemable throughout the narrative. 

‘Green Dot’ follows the story of a young woman, Hera, as she gets her first ‘real’ job and falls in love with her married, older colleague. We observe the start and the eventual fall of their relationship and her attempts to make a career for herself. Hera is described as unmet potential, a young woman with a college degree who at the age of 24 still lives with her father and their dog. Supposedly, she is sharp, intelligent and funny with a full potential for life and the future.

I was sold that this would be a kind of bildungsroman of a millennial woman at the cusp of adulthood as she goes for her ‘big girl’ job and attempts to find joy in content moderation that is slowly draining her. Instead, what I got was an insufferable white feminist, with a holier than thou attitude who is physically incapable of seeing her own faults, but is very happy to point out others. Her narrative is supposed to be some kind of reflection of the plight of modern women, who are so funny and quirky, but if this is it, we are all doomed. Hera took all the negatives of a Fleabag like character, but without any of the soul, humor and honesty that is required to make that work. We just get a delusional girl who genuinely believes that she could play house with her married partner and his kid.

Similarly, we as the readers are expected to believe that her affair partner, Arthur is somebody that is worth throwing everything for, but he was nothing. I could not even find it in me to care for him or his destiny because he was just so full of cliches that I did not think of him as the real person. He is just so bland, yet somehow equally unlikable that it was an achievement of the novel. Everything that comes out of this man’s mouth, especially in the scenes where he was presented as being emotionally vulnerable just made me want to vomit and made me physically cringe. While Hera is at fault for getting involved with the married man, the sheer cowardice and hypocrisy of this man was indescribable.

Maybe if the book was told from the perspective of a genuinely interesting, but flawed individual, the whole story would be better. This way, it failed in every conceivable way. The narration is bland with semi interesting and unrelated anecdotes sprinkled in, with absolutely no progression of any of the characters, plot or a message. While I can understand that some relationships are hard to get out of, reading about Hera’s delusion that Arthur would leave his wife and his life for her got real tired real soon. When she finally leaves him and goes to London as a way to get away from him, I actually had hope for her. But then we are sucked right back into it all, after only a few chapters and here we go again.

As this is a novel about the affair, there are some more mature scenes in the story. They felt so stiff (pardon the pun) and awkward, and did nothing to persuade me that this is the relationship that made it worth messing everything up for. Instead, it made me want to keep hitting the fast forward button until they were finished. Honestly, I was hoping they’d get caught because then at least something would happen. Instead, we are just reading about Hera sinking deeper and deeper until it was finally over at the end. It was all for nothing as anybody could have told you from the start.

Literally everybody else in the book was a saint compared to Arthur and Hera. While I was listening to it, I kept thinking ‘her poor dad’ who she kept blowing off to wait around so Arthur might call her or ‘her poor friends’ who had to pretend she wasn’t as delusional as she was. Hera claims the relationships in her life are important to her, but nowhere is it shown, except when she keeps chasing Arthur.

The ending of ‘Green Dot’ could not have come sooner and it was just as disappointing as the rest of it. It was rushed and predictable from a mile away. No, he wasn’t going to leave his wife, no matter how many times he promised her, especially after they had a kid together. Her big speech at the end was supposed to give us a feeling of….I don’t know satisfaction? But Hera was just awful as a human being and a narrator that I just didn’t care anymore.

At the end, I rated this ⅕ only because there was a dog in it. Nothing else worked well.