SALE ON NOW! PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

$34.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English
Harvill
26 August 2025
An audacious, darkly funny novel and perfect summer read about a young woman in Madrid whose carefully crafted office persona threatens to crack when she's forced to attend her company's annual retreat

Life can't go on like this - can it? This book is for everyone who has ever wanted more- more time, more meaning, more connection.

On the surface, Marisa's life looks enviable. She lives in a nice apartment in the heart of Madrid, her friendly neighbour and lover Pablo lives downstairs, and she's risen quickly through the ranks at a successful advertising agency.

And yet Marisa hates her job and everything about it. Over one hot summer, she spends her working hours locked in her office, bingeing on YouTube videos and getting high on tranquilizers, wondering if everyone cries when their alarm goes off in the morning. When she can, she escapes to the air-conditioned basement of the Prado Museum.

But Marisa's fa ade of success is in danger of being exposed as she's forced to deliver a talk on creativity at her company's horrendous annual team-building retreat. Surrounded by psychopathic bosses, annoyingly overzealous colleagues, flirty facilitators, and an excess of drugs, Marisa is pushed to the brink of a complete spiral.

Told with acid humour to explosive consequences, Discontent is a dazzling tale of modern angst and finally acting on our wilder impulses to reclaim our lives from work.
By:  
Translated by:  
Imprint:   Harvill
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 215mm,  Width: 133mm,  Spine: 15mm
Weight:   192g
ISBN:   9781787305090
ISBN 10:   1787305090
Pages:   240
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  ELT Advanced ,  Primary
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming

Beatriz Serrano (Author) Beatriz Serrano is a writer and a journalist who has written for publications such as BuzzFeed, Vanity Fair, GQ, Harper's Bazaar, S Moda, and Vogue. She works for El Pais and, along with writer Guillermo Alonso, co-directs the prizewinning podcast Arsenico Caviar. Discontent is her first novel. She currently lives in Madrid.

Reviews for Discontent

A wry work of spectacular wit, Discontent skewers every novel of workplace ennui that has come before it. Beatriz Serrano writes with a caustic flair for detail, exploring the small humiliations of the everyday corporate office with charm and utter hilarity. Absolutely brilliant -- Danya Kukafka, author of NOTES ON AN EXECUTION Our heroine compulsively watches YouTube, pops Ativan, quotes both Britney Spears and Proust, dreads work small talk, and, at one point, Googles 'how to be creative.' I adored her. Discontent is a razor-sharp debut with a riveting climax -- Anna Dorn, author of PERFUME & PAIN This intelligent, engaging novel perfectly captures the discontent of our contemporary minds, managing all the while to be totally hilarious -- Aysegül Savas, author of THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS


See Also