Book Review | Green Dot by Madeleine Gray
If you’re thinking about checking out Green Dot yourself, don’t worry about spoilers. The first part of my reviews are always spoiler-free so you can see if the book is your cup of tea. After a quick summary and a basic review, I’ll give a spoiler warning and do a deep dive into everything I loved and hated about book.
Green Dot is Madeleine Gray’s debut novel. According to her website, she’s an “arts writer and book critic.” Like the main character in Green Dot, Gray has an impressive list of degrees, which shows through in the quality of her writing. I’ll definitely be looking out for whatever she has coming next.
Content Warning
I always like to give a quick content warning for any sensitive topics. These are some content warnings for book:
Alcohol or drugs.
Death of a pet.
Eating disorders.
Explicit intimacy.
Mental illness.
Pregnancy.
Suicidal ideation.
Quick Synopsis
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.
My Rating
Everybody has to come up with their own system for judging and rating books, and here’s mine:
One star: I couldn’t finish the book. (DNF)
Two stars: I struggled to finish, but I did.
Three stars: This book was okay and worth reading.
Four stars: I liked this book and I would recommend it to a friend.
Five stars: I’d read this book again, and it’s going on my favorites shelf.
My Rating Scale
By no means do I think this is a perfect rating system, but I had to come up with something that would help me avoid arbitrarily assigning ratings. This provides a solid guideline for rating qualifications.
I gave Green Dot a four-star rating because I would recommend it to a friend, but I wouldn’t read it again. I thought it was very well written, and my only complaint is that the subject matter, while realistic and surely reflecting many young peoples’ experiences of the world, was ultimately kind of depressing.
If you read Green Dot and you enjoyed it, you may also like:
Book Cover: Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin
Interesting Facts About Space
This is another book about a queer woman. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, includes themes of adultery, and explores mental health and how it affects our relationships.
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
Come and Get It follows another unconventional relationship, as well as race and class dynamics in college. It has the same quality of writing as Green Dot.
The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane
Another book with themes of adultery and what it means to persevere in the face of hardship. It’s a great book for anyone who is finding out their first dream may not be the only dream.
Summary
We’re now entering the spoiler-y part of this review. If you think book sounds like your cup of tea, click away, read it, and come back to see if you agree or disagree with my critique. If you like the sound of the book but you don’t want to read it, don’t worry, I’ll give you the full rundown.
SPOILERS
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SPOILERS -
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.
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.
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.
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.
Deep Dive
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.
As always, you can follow me on Goodreads or Instagram to see more about what I’m reading now and what I plan to read next. If you’re interested in any of the books mentioned in this article, you can click on the links to purchase them at Bookshop.org, an organization that helps support local bookstores. As an affiliate, I can earn some money from any purchase you make through my links.
These area some books I may read next:
Right On Cue by Falon Ballard
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
Good Half Gone by Taryn Fisher
