Adulting Is Hard: 6 Clever Novels that Capture the Struggles of Millennials

The English-language debut of an exciting young voice in international fiction, selling 660,000 copies in Japan alone, Convenience Store Woman is a bewitching portrayal of contemporary Japan through the eyes of a single woman who fits into the rigidity of its work culture only too well. The English-language debut of one of Japan’s most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction—many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual—and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action… A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.

Okay, it’s not a novel (it’s a collection of short stories), but let’s not be pedantic when something’s SO GOOD. I truly think Heiny is one of the funniest authors writing today. In these stories, she explores adultery, parenthood, heartache, and self-deception—all the perils of maturity. This book taught me so much about being a young adult—and, most of all, it felt like solidarity in the wilderness of late-twenties life. A slim volume, it punches well above its weight. I’d also heartily recommend Heiny’s novel, Standard Deviation—arguably even more grown-up, and just as funny.

Having good friends is another classic milestone of growing up. Finding your people. Your squad. We hear so much about that, don’t we? So, it’s really refreshing when a book comes along that smashes all that apart and tells the story of an angry loner. Hurrah for angry loners! Butler’s book is one of the best things I’ve read in years. It follows a young woman temping in Chicago, a millennial lost in a late-capitalist nightmare. Millie suffers from feelings of bitterness, ennui, and inadequacy, but that’s not the worst of it: she just can’t turn off that cursed inner monologue (which, as we all know, is the only thing in this world worse than office politics). She’s mean, sad, and doomed. Good thing she’s also hilarious.

Dark snark at its finest, Pilger’s ferocious satire follows the skint and heartbroken Ann-Marie around London in the pursuit of love—and modern feminism. Plunging in and out of neon-glazed bars and depressing house parties, Eat My Heart Out is the perfect what-not-to-do manual for young narcissists and hedonists. If acquiring a sense of politics and personal ideologies is part of growing up, this cannibalistic tale shows how wrong we can get it, if we eat everything we are fed from the media.

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Fleabag meets Conversations with Friends in this brutally honest, observant, original novel about a woman going through a breakup…but really having more of a breakdown.

Jenny McLaine’s life is falling apart. Her friendships are flagging. Her body has failed her. She’s just lost her column at The Foof because she isn’t the fierce voice new feminism needs. Her ex has gotten together with another woman. And worst of all: Jenny’s mother is about to move in. Having left home at eighteen to remake herself as a self-sufficient millennial, Jenny is now in her thirties and nothing is as she thought it would be. Least of all adulthood.

Told in live-wire prose, texts, emails, script dialogue, and social media messages, Grown Ups is a neurotic dramedy of 21st-century manners for the digital age. It reckons with what it means to exist in a woman’s body: to sing and dance and work and mother and sparkle and equalize and not complain and be beautiful and love your imperfections and stay strong and show your vulnerability and bake and box…

But, despite our impossible expectations of women, Emma Jane Unsworth never lets Jenny off the hook. Jenny’s life is falling apart at her own hands and whether or not she has help from her mother or her friends, Jenny is the only one who will be able to pick up the pieces and learn how to, more or less, grow up. Or will she?