Sad Janet, by Lucie Britsch

An odd little book which isn’t entirely sad at all. Janet has a college degree, a boyfriend of three years with whom she lives, and loving, if intrusive, parents. But her default mood has always been one of sadness, which is probably accentuated by her job working at a funky dog shelter located in the woods and run by an equally odd woman with a couple of kids. Both of them are pretty annoyed by the ongoing cheerfulness of their other coworker, Melissa. When Janet’s parents and boyfriend stage an intervention to get her to agree to take the meds that they and her doctor have been pushing for years, she breaks up with her boyfriend but ultimately gives into her parents wish (her mother swears by her own pharmaceuticals) to try out the new short-term “Christmas pill” that is being heavily promoted by Big Pharm as the season approaches. Janet hates everything about this holiday of often forced joyfulness. The pill is taken daily for a couple of months prior to the Big Day then tapered off afterwards for a week. Janet finally accedes to their pressure. What happens over the course of the next couple of months takes some unusual swerves towards the end of this debut novel. But you have to like a book that says, “Driving back, I see It’s a wonderful life is playing 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, it I had those annoying kids. And Mary’s worst fate is that she ends up being a librarian? Everyone knows librarians are the best people.” Enough to recommend it!! 276 pp.