The sublimely awkward and hilarious (Chicago Tribune) National Book Award 5 Under 35-garnering
first novel from the acclaimed author of The New Me--now in a new edition Twenty-four-year-old
Megan may have her whole life ahead of her but it already feels like a dead end thanks to her
dreadful job as a gastroenterologist's receptionist and her heart-clogging resentment of the
success and happiness of everyone around her. But no one stokes Megan's bitterness quite like
her coworker Jillian a grotesquely optimistic thirty-five-year-old single mother whose
chirpy positivity obscures her mounting struggles. Megan and Jillian's lives become
increasingly precarious as their faulty coping mechanisms--denial self-help books alcohol
religion prescription painkillers obsessive criticism alienated boyfriends and in
Jillian's case the misguided purchase of a dog--send them spiraling toward their downfalls.
Wickedly authentic and brutally funny Jillian is a subversive portrait of two women trapped in
cycles of self-delusion and self-destruction each more like the other than they would care to
admit.
