For as long as I can remember feeling things, I’ve felt sadness. Now, for example, I feel sad that we have no money. Also a little mad that a bunch of idiots seem to have it all. But sad, mostly, because I think that’s just the way things are. It’s an all-encompassing feeling, like my lungs are filled with it instead of air. You’d think it would feel better to be at one with the world.
Janet works at a rundown dog shelter in the woods. She wears black, loves the Smiths, and can’t wait to get rid of her passive-aggressive boyfriend. Her brain is full of anxiety, like “one of those closets you never want to open because everything will fall out and crush you.” She has a meddlesome family, eccentric coworkers, one old friend who’s left her for Ibiza, and one new friend who’s really just a neighbor she sees in the hallway. Most of all, Janet has her sadness—a comfortable cloak she uses to insulate herself from the oppressions of the wider world.
That is, until one fateful summer when word spreads about a new pill that offers even cynics like her a short-term taste of happiness . . . just long enough to make it through the holidays without wanting to stab someone with a candy cane. When her family stages an intervention, her boyfriend leaves, and the prospect of making it through Christmas alone seems like too much, Janet decides to give them what they want. What follows is life-changing for all concerned—in ways no one quite expects.
Hilarious, bitterly wise, and surprisingly warm, Sad Janet is the depression comedy you never knew you needed.
Janet was a really great character. I enjoyed being inside her mind, loved her wit, her interactions and observations. I just didn't particularly enjoy the actual plot.. it felt secondary and kind of pointless. It was more about the character of Janet herself that made me like the book. The plot seemed like the afterthought of how to write a look about the character of Janet. Instead of the other way around. Even so I still enjoyed reading it enough to rate it 4 stars.
also this
'because as a woman I'm hard-wired to always be thinking about babies even if what I'm thinking is that I definitely don't want any. Mostly I want to forget I'm a woman and just be a person, but it's almost impossible'
Look, I won't recommend this book to you if you're an evolved human being who is able to genuinely enjoy a re-read of Sense and Sensibility in a bubble bath, but for the rest of us this book is everything. I feel motherfucking seen.
For fans of Samantha Irby, but with less shitting!
I wanted to take a star off for the muddled ending, but who am I, Harold Bloom?!
I’ve dabbled with happiness, I want to tell them, but it never stuck.
All you have to do is take a gander at the Goodreads’ rating and you’ll see that Janet is not for everybody. She’s my lobster, though, so she’s getting many of the Starzzzzzzzz. The story here is about, you guessed it, Janet. Janet has embraced her sad, but it’s an inconvenience for her family so they stage an intervention in order to get Janet to sign up for a new pill that is guaranteed to turn your frown upside down in order for those around you to be able to tolerate you during the holidays. The name? Santa’s Little Helper . . . .
^^^No relation.
I’ll be honest and say there isn’t a whole lot of story going on here. The magic is all in Janet’s voice so let me share a few quotes that made me fall in love with her . . . .
Happiness is not on my radar. I want other things. Like control over my life, my body. Like being able to get through a day without feeling like I’m doing it wrong. I want to feel all my feelings, not swallow them, and if they swallow me, so be it.
You can’t just sit in your room listening to the Smiths, Janet! my mother used to say, and I’d say, I think Morrissey would disagree.
I see It’s a Wonderful Life is showing at the Rialto. I saw it once, out of curiosity, because I thought a Christmas movie about suicide sounded right up my alley, but I couldn’t take it. I thought, I’d throw myself off a bridge too, if I had those annoying kids. And Mary’s worst fate is that she ends up a librarian? Everyone knows librarians are the best people.
So as I said above, my lobster. The loveable loser has always been a fave and when I was growing up my nickname was Melancholy Blue. Never have I felt such a connection to a character and as Janet says . . . .
Fuck off, I don’t need your permission to feel my feelings. I didn’t need your permission to accept my stretch marks, and I don’t need it for this either.
alright so yes i read it 90% because i like the cover and the title but i also thought i could like it because the premise: a sad girl who loves dogs and hates christmas... perfect for me!
i was actually pretty into it for the first 50 pages or so and i did relate to some bits about having like a sadness that's not like debilitating but is just kind of like constant background to life and i thought it could go in an interesting direction
but god damn the main character is absolutely insufferable. she's on so much "im not like other girls bullshit" because she's sad and she wears black and she reads books and isn't into make up. the whole book is just like im janet and i dont like anyone because im sad and grumpy so i'm just gonna be annoying and rude for the whole book. the book has very little plot so it's mostly character based and holy shit this character sucks. she has 0 character development through the whole novel and manages to get even more insufferable as the book goes on. very difficult to get through.
the whole plot with the christmas pill makes 0 sense.
there are a few lines that suggest that the book is like supposed to be feminist or something but the main (straight) character is not only annoying as shit but low key homophobic.
it's also supposed to be a comedy but i didn't find a single bit funny. in fact, the parts that are supposed to be jokes i can tell that it's trying soooo hard to be a joke and is so incredibly not funny.
anyway if you wanna read this book because of the cover, just look at it and be like cool cover, and then go read something else. spare yourself.
Janet is deeply, profoundly sad. Not about anything in particular; it’s just her perpetual state. And she fails to see the problem with that. When her family and boyfriend try to convince her to take antidepressants, she is so resistant that she cuts all of them out of her life. But when a new pharmaceutical option comes onto the scene, she’s intrigued. This pill is designed to create feelings of joy…but only at Christmas time. Drawn to the idea of a happy, cozy Christmas, Janet reluctantly agrees to a prescription. But will she like the person she becomes?
Even though this book centres on a character who is unable to feel joy, it is so very funny! Like, I dare you to finish this book without laughing out loud at least once or sending the funniest quotes to your friend group chat. It is absolutely wild that the author manages to make every single line a zinger. Janet may be misanthropic, but her scathing, witty voice is a joy to read. My fellow introverted dog lovers will also relate to her “dogs are better than people” attitude!
I do think parts of this book could be seen as anti-psychiatry, so I want to remind people that it’s just a story and psychiatric drugs are absolutely the right choice for some people, just as they’re the wrong one for others.
With that caveat given, I fully recommend this book! This one is perfect for the lit fic girlies searching for a Christmasy read in a sea of romcoms.
I should have paid attention to the ratings and reviews instead of falling for an amazing cover.
It wasn't that I didn't laugh, or even enjoy the book at times, but it was the longest 270 page book I have ever read. There was so much unnecessary repetition, that it could have been cut in half and it only would have made the book better.
I thought I would like this book more since the author had comparisons to Halle Butler and Ottessa Moshfegh, both of whom are authors I enjoy but are not palatable to mainstream audiences. But I just found this book really dull. There's a few glimmers of insight into the character and a few keen sentences that highlight what it's like to be sad, but overall I was just rushing through this book trying to finish it. A lot of it read like someone's blog post where they make a lot of jokes to an unseen audience. I didn't really feel a whole lot, though *shrug*. I think with Butler and Moshfegh's books, the protagonists are similar to Janet, but I felt more for them and connected with them on some level.
Leave the projecting to me everybody, I've got it covered. I'll make this laugh-out-loud funny book sound way more serious than it needs to be in 30 seconds flat 💪🏼
In Sad Janet, she's offered a pill to gradually replenish the childlike joy of Christmas over the course of the holiday season.
After being on some type of mental health med for the last 16 years myself (w no signs of slowin down lol), it was impossible not to see parallels between stigmatized views of medication treating mental health and the inanity of a magical Christmas drug.
Until reading this I was firm in my belief that if you're grumpy and ya know it, clap your hands. Shit I've been around my son too long - If you're grumpy and ya know it, try some meds. I'm not trying to belittle the commitment to medication. But if it's possible to feel (healthily) better than you do now, why not try for that higher baseline of feelings?
Janet, that's why.
& If you can't identify w what I like to call medically induced inner turmoil, can I interest you in the uncomfy feeling when someone wanting to really know you 🤢 and love you 🤢 with no ulterior motives? 🤮 (Not me, I'd love if everyone loved me hehe) Then you'll get a kick out of this.
Can't identify w either of those? 1) Lucky you and/or are you lying to yourself? 2) IT'S STILL HILARIOUS OK JUST READ SAD JANET it's perf for this time of year.
It's not necessarily fun being inside of Janet's head for all of SAD JANET, but Lucie Britsch's debut novel is unexpectedly funny and cunning, which is surprising for a book about depression. Janet, a recent college grad, is sad and adrift following a breakup with a boy she never really liked, and an intervention from her family telling her she needs to take pills to improve her mood. Despite being very smart, she works with two other women running a dog shelter in the middle of the woods (which she feels is the only place that can truly handle her sadness). The plot develops as she decides to try a new miracle drug, that will make you happy specifically on Christmas. It's satire, surreal, and sad all at the same time.
I ended up liking Janet, and weirdly kind of wanted to be her friend at the end, which I didn't expect when I cracked the novel open. She certainly has some unlikeable qualities, but she's trying her best, like all of us are, and while the trope of the sad white girl is still pretty prevalent in this book, I did feel for her struggles and bad family card she was dealt. Britsch's writing is fresh and dry, and was probably my favorite part of reading SAD JANET. She is funny in unexpected ways, and I can't wait to read more from her in the future.
Today we're given a pill to fix any and everything - but what if you want to actually feel your highs and lows?
Janet is a snarky, somber young lady who refuses to become a pill-popping drone like all those around her. She doesn't want to pretend she isn't melancholy by nature, and loves the dogs she works with more than most people in her life. One day her doctor tells her 'they've finally made a pill perfect for you - it will help you get through the holidays!'
A cynical, misanthropic read for those who also like their dogs more than mankind sometimes ;)
I haven't had this much fun listening to an audiobook in ages. Seriously, this thing is so well done and Kristen Sieh was the perfect narrator.
Sad Janet is totally my people. She's happily miserable. She's painfully self aware. She could give two shits what anyone thinks of her. She drops the F bomb like nobody's business. She's tired of her boyfriend wanting to fix her. She's tired of her family giving her crap for being her. But as the holidays approach, she's also, maybe, getting just a teeny tiny little bit tired of being Sad Janet too. And though she's not sure she's ready to let go of her Sad completely, she's thinking she's maybe willing to give it a temporary test drive.
Go read this fucking thing. You're going to love it.
Your enjoyment of this book will depend on how enthralled you are with Janet. I’m all for the “young, emotionally detached narrator who doesn’t have her life together” trope, but after 250+ pages inside of Janet’s head I was a little tired. Yes, she had a fun and quirky relationship with her coworkers and banter-filled encounters with the neighbor girl across the hall and her mother and father are hysterical and generally conflict averse, respectively, but I’m not sure what it all amounted to. The idea of the Christmas pill was intriguing, though it did make me wonder why it’s being put out in June and not, say, November. Initially I wasn’t sure if the over-medicated world that Janet inhabits is our own or just one close to it. I wish more was done with the group therapy for pill takers as well as with the fallout of Janet’s romantic relationship. The author did however, get at truths about societal expectations, especially for women, the happiness complex and nailed complicated relationships. This book will inevitably draw comparisons to Halle Butler’s books, which I think is fair. I just don’t think it’s one that’s going to stick with me for very long.
Ever feel like a book was written specifically for you? As though it just gets you and everything you’re about? It speaks directly to your soul? That book for me is Sad Janet.
I love any book that opens with a quote from my personal hero, Mr John Waters. I love any character that watches The Craft 10 times a year and it ain’t even October yet. Seriously, I feel like this book could be retitled Sad Bert and I could easily pass it off as a memoir.
Anyone that’s ever suffered from clinical depression, anyone that’s tried all the big antidepressants, Lexapro, Zoloft, Prozac, anyone that wants a laugh, read this book.
It’s like a hybrid of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, mixed with The New Me by Halle Butler, by way of My Year Of Rest & Relaxation by Ottessa Mossfegh. It’s sad, but also funny, and like the jacket says, if you’re sad, read the book, it might make you happy.
Meet Janet, a sad girl who works in a dogs shelter. Janet is just like the most of us, with a family and a boyfriend who want her to be HAPPY!! We all have been sad for times so I can understand the feeling, but for Janet her sadness is permanent. she's not sad about her life, she's sad because of the world and what it became to.
when all the ppl around her are taking pills and get medicated to feel normal and happy maybe, she just embrace her sadness and do nothing about it.
I liked her a lot, I thought she's a great character. It was a fun dark read.. depressing a little maybe. by the end of it I asked myself would I take the pills to get rid of my feelings, my sadness??
She is depressed yet she manages to be so hilarious. Then again, she doesn't even try to be funny, does she?
I completed the first half of the book just fine but after a point it wasn't too fun for me. I listened to the audio book to complete it because it's been over a month I've been reading this. Let's be real, it was a good book but it was somehow too detailed. It wasn't unnecessary but after a point it just gave me headache. It was kinda fun. But after a point it's just not bearable. It wasn't a 'bad book' but it wasn't a book that I would particularly enjoy. It's written really well to be fair. I loved being in her head. It was just me, I guess. It was just not for me.
I loved this so much, firstly for the dogs, secondly for the cover, and thirdly for the story (although when I say story, I mean Janet, because to be clear here the character is the whole story, so don’t be expecting an extravagant plot). I both felt for Janet and felt like Janet too many times to count (although we’d probably both agree I’m defs more a Melissa than a Janet but I’d like to argue a blend is possible. Anyway). Most of all I loved absolutely everything that had to do with this book establishing itself as a firm member of Team Dogs > Humans, a fact which is enormously emphasized throughout the entire thing and therefore immediately guaranteed a 5 star rating from me for its excellent insightfulness.
I collected a bunch of quotes while reading, all of which have managed to uncannily sum my soul up into several neat sentences, including but not limited to the following:
“I spend my life in fear of unexpected parties, but now I have a reprieve. I might get to watch my shows in peace, I think, like I’m a hundred.”
“I lie awake most nights now thinking about everything that has ever happened to me…. Stuff that happened today at work, last week, last year, five years ago, it’s all just there at the front of my brain when it’s supposed to be shelved away, like I’ve stored it all wrong, like my brain is one of those closets you never want to open because everything will fall out and crush you.”
“Behind every okay man is a better dog. I watch myself leave the bar and go to his apartment and tell myself it’s for the dog, it’s always for the dog. When life throws you lemons, remember there are dogs.”
“Walking with a dog is the closest thing to free, for me and the dog. We forget about the leash and the clock and the fact that eventually I’ll have to return the dog and go back to the world.”
“People think she’s saving those dogs, but really they’re saving her - and not for any Hallmark reasons, just because they give her a good excuse to avoid most of the bullshit that normal life offers.”
AND THERE’S A LOT MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM. Thank you Lucie Britsch for not romanticizing dog shelters but proving the perfection of what dogs do for us always and forever anyway.
Ohhhhh my GOD I actually had to DNF this (something I never do). This book was honestly insufferable. Here's the line that drove me to the point of DNF: (talking about her phone case) "Mine is black, with a lot of scratches and dents, like my heart". This was cringeworthy and full of try-hard, overplayed clichés that made my eyes roll and my stomach churn, but I should have guessed this from the 2014 Urban Outfitters-esque cover. Avoid avoid avoid.
Oh god, it had me laughing and crying and relating a little too hard all the while. I'm going to recommend this book to so many people who might have a hard holiday season this year. This is commiseration at its best, and one of the strongest literary voices I've read in years.
I have a lot of complicated feelings about this book—I both liked and didn't like it. I appreciated the discussion about everyone living their lives in their own way, and if that meant not following a "standard" path, that was okay. But I also didn't love the anti-medication feelings, while I do understand many people prefer not to take medication for mental illness. This was a tricky book, and I'll likely be thinking about it for a long time.
CWs: depression; suicidal ideation; discussion of many anti-depression medications; death of pets; death of person (a stranger to main character)
This book cured my depression and made me want to be a better person. Not because it was good, but because Janet was such a miserable, insufferable hag that the possibility of ever being remotely similar to her is the most mortifying thought I’ve ever had. They should rename this book “I’m Not Like Other Girls: The Novel”.
The only part of this booked I enjoyed was when the The Smith's were mentioned in the description. Tragically I think even this book is too sad for Morrissey himself.
Before we go to the vet to have dogs put to sleep, we go to McDonald's.
Sad Janet is the weirdest Christmas-themed book I have ever read. (Sorry, Stuart McLean! Vinyl Café is still my favourite, though.) I have a lot of thoughts about Sad Janet, which is (accurately) marketed as a dark satire of the inner monologue of a chronically depressed woman. The titular main character works at a dog shelter that also functions as a sanctuary away from the outside world for the women who work there. Janet works at the dog shelter two reasons. First, she loves dogs. Second, she doesn’t have to pretend to be happy and well-adjusted when she is around the dogs or the other women, considering that many of them have sadnesses of their own. The two other full-time staff at the shelter are Deb, the boss who Janet greatly admires, and Melissa, the fellow employee who Janet considers herself senior to because Janet started work at the shelter a few weeks before Melissa did. Deb and Melissa are both divorced with young children. Janet enjoys babysitting their children and doesn’t ask them about their exes. The dog shelter is no-kill, but many of the abandoned dogs they receive are dying and it is part of Janet’s job to drive them to the veterinarian and comfort them in their final moments. Janet says she can handle the grief and anger because it is not a far cry from the way she normally feels.
The highlight of the reading experience is Janet’s outstandingly consistent and authentic voice. Janet’s running commentary on everyone and everything around her is funny, cynical and brutally honest. Perhaps ironically for a book about depression, Sad Janet makes everything seem interesting, from television commercials to taking out the garbage. Britsch makes occasional stylistic blunders (awkward clarifications of unclear referents, for example) that could have been avoided with a bit more editing. Otherwise, the narrative style strikes a good balance between clarity and stream of consciousness. Secondary characters are developed primarily through Janet’s interior monologue and not dialogue, which may come across as telling rather than showing at first, but the strategy works well. Take this description of one of Janet’s roommates, for example, who “likes us all to know when she has her period. She probably hopes that one day, we will all break down and start telling her when we have our periods, but we don’t. One time, I thought I might have mine at the same time as hers, and I willed it back in my body just to keep from being in sync with her. If that had happened, I’d never have heard the end of it.”
As other reviewers have pointed out, many recent releases about young women (including books such as Luster, Boy Parts, Milk Fed, Shut Up You're Pretty…) use graphic violence and/or self-destruction as a vehicle for social commentary. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, and I have enjoyed many of these books. That said, it was very refreshing to read about a female character who is angry and has problems but doesn’t experience a major trauma during the main storyline. This narrative approach acknowledges, possibly even centers the alienation caused by the trauma (it is implied that Janet and other characters such as Melissa and Deb have experienced trauma in the past), but not the trauma itself. Likewise, I like that Britsch doesn’t tell us everything about Janet, or Melissa, or Deb. As Carrie Brownstein puts it in her memoir Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, “We don’t get to have her because we don’t know exactly who she is.” In short, Sad Janet manages to be dark, messy and deeply personal while avoiding the pitfalls of being traumatic or over-exposed.
The fatal flaw of this otherwise witty book was the insincerity of the central conflict. Janet looks down on those who take antidepressants or otherwise ‘give in’ to the constant pressure to be happy, yet she ends up taking part in an unethical clinical trial of a fictional new antidepressant called ‘the Christmas pill’. Her decision stems from the complex she has developed about not enjoying Christmas enough to suit her family and friends. “I picture myself lying on her sofa, unable to move as she and her kid decorate me like a tree and force feed me novelty cookies until I choke.” I found Janet’s hypocrisy confusing and incredibly unfunny, not because the topic is disagreeable or overly dark but because it is drawn out far too long. A few facile jokes about antidepressants might have been amusing, but not a whole book full of them. Perhaps I should have expected this from the blurb, but I honestly thought that the book would spend more time on other topics. I have a couple of other criticisms, namely, that some chapters veer into the category of boring or redundant and that Janet can be tiresome as a character. Sad Janet accomplishes many things and is an impressive debut, but it is not perfect.
“People don’t like this sadness of mine. They’ll do anything to pretend it’s not there.” Janet knows she is being judged for her lack of self-consciousness about being depressed, not for being depressed in as of itself, and this perspective forms the heart of the novel. Yes, she is a flawed person who ignores her friends and lashes out at people, but even if she plastered on a fake smile, she knows that most people would not accept her. Learning to be honest with the women who do accept her and ask for help on her own terms is Janet’s journey. Britsch’s debut truly champions female friendship in a way that feels organic and not at all forced. Sad Janet is ultimately a story about self-acceptance.
This is quite possibly the longest Goodreads review I have ever written. If you made it to the end of my rambling, thank you for your time! I recommend reading Sad Janet if its particular brand of humour appeals to you and you enjoy character-driven books.
I really wanted to love this book, but somehow it was lacking. I’m not really sure in what, but I do think it either needed to be much darker or much funnier. It was this kind of in between, not really dark and not really funny, which ended up making it very monotone. I had high hopes - I did like the narration & the premise though, which is why I’m giving it three stars.
There are a few truly brilliant sentences in this novel. That's the best I can say. The plot sounded interesting, but it was just awful in this execution. It's the kind of book where you're more than halfway thru & not sure if you should keep reading. Good character/ so much potential /bad book. Couldn't recommend.