As the young Mireles struggles to move past her once carefully-curated life plans, she’s faced with one additional bombshell-her parents’ marriage has crumbled. This question of who Mona truly is outside of this unending drive for success occupies the latter half of the novel. She mulls over the advice of her job seeker’s leader, “ just what I do it’s not who I am. Slowly, Mona realizes that she should find a way to make her work week more bearable or even vaguely enjoyable. When Mona’s networking finally lands her a low-prestige job at a call center located at the back of an RV warehouse, at first, she expresses her disappointment through a snarky attitude towards her co-workers. One particularly choice phrase, for example: “Ur sementem feceris ita metes-As you sow shit, so shall that shit come back to thrash you in public”-forces Mona to acknowledge that her behavior warrants a public apology to a friend she has deeply wronged. Readers only need to look for Mona’s witty Latin sayings she coins at the end of key scenes to understand her changing perspective. While James’ packed plot at times veers a bit towards the daytime TV talk show dramas Mona fills her days with, eventually Mireles realizes she needs to move past her angry outbursts, occasional bad choices, and bitter inner monologues to re-engage with the reality around her. Ever the perfectionist, Mona cannot even engage in self-harm haphazardly rather, she draws upon her long-dormant art skills to create an aptly chosen and intricately-planned image on her upper thigh. Forced by her domineering mother to attend an eclectic support group for job seekers at a local church, Mona turns to cutting and alcohol for solace. Additionally, Mona’s close network is preoccupied with their own concerns-her U of A faculty researcher parents are weathering job cuts in their lab, her fraternity president younger brother is fundraising for a seemingly-sketchy charity fund, and her best friend Ashley is staring down the same soul-crushing job market. James’ Tucson is a place clearly suffering from the Great Recession as Mona meets a few despicable characters in her quest for employment. Millennial readers, in particular, can sympathize with Mona’s sardonic, but fairly accurate perspective of the society her generation grew up in: “In my long unemployment the one privilege I’ve had is the ability to stand still, and as I watch the world continue without me, it all seems like distractions piled one on top of the others, bricks falling endlessly from the sky like Tetris.”Īs Mona’s job applications balloon into the hundreds, her desperation and depression spiral. While the novel doesn’t shy away from the deep pain Mona feels, James allows her main character a dark wit-many of her comments lend comparisons to Generation X’s Daria, albeit if she had grown up as an overscheduled, entitled academic wunderkind. I said no to drugs, I stayed in school, I got straight A’s and ate my veggies and now I just want my job …” This unwanted fame and the subsequent “Tumblr page out there of photos of me giving the middle finger ” adds to Mona’s profound shame as she returns home to Tucson, Arizona where she stares at the now meaningless wall of trophies in her childhood bedroom. I did everything right, you know? Everything. Interviewed as she absorbs the news, Mona’s anxious, angry tirade at the loss of her life’s dream becomes the viral “sad Millennial” internet video: “It’s not fair. Mona, a recent, highly-successful finance graduate from the University of Arizona, was hired to work at one of the most prestigious investment banks in New York City, only to be downsized (along with thousands of others) the day she arrived. Elizabeth Gonzalez James’ debut novel Mona at Sea offers a look into the wickedly funny and often insightful journey Mona faces to find her place in the world again in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. “I’m unemployed, I’ve never had a boyfriend, I live with my parents in the most boring town on the planet, and I hate myself” are the words Millennial narrator Mona Mireles recites to herself each night as she tries to sleep.
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