Genevieve Novak

Hungover, underpaid and overwhelmed, this isn't where Penny expected to be as she reached her late twenties. A sharp, smart and witty look at adulting - Fleabag meets Sorrow and Bliss. Penny can't help but compare herself to her friends. Annie is about to be a senior associate at her law firm, Bec has just got engaged, Leo is dating everyone this side of the Yarra, and Penny is just ... waiting. Waiting for Max, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, to allow her to spend the night, waiting for the promotion she was promised, waiting for her Valium to kick in. Waiting for her real life to start. Out of excuses and sick of falling behind, Penny challenges herself to turn things around. She's going to make it work with Max, impress her tyrannical boss, quit seeing her useless therapist, remember to water her plants, and stop having panic attacks in the work toilets. But soon she's back to doomscrolling on Instagram, necking bottles of Aldi's finest sauvignon blanc, and criticising herself with renewed vigour and loathing. When her goals seem further away than ever, she has to wonder: when bad habits feel so good, how do you trust what's good for you?

No Hard Feelings

I think I related to this far too much for my liking

Renae Morran

Dorothy Bond

No Hard Feelings by Australian author Genevieve Novak had me flying through chapter after chapter! I am OBSESSED! I am all for sad girl/ millennial lit, I mean, don’t we all love a messy MC? Penny is a charming, loveable dumpster fire of a human with the lowest self esteem. Stuck in a job she has no passion for with a boss on a superiority trip, friends who are way more successful than she is and a situationship with her ex who makes sure to keep her close enough but not so close she can ever feel satisfied or content. She’s a mess, but she swears she’s doing her best!

Penny embodies the overwhelming anxiety and imposter syndrome we all feel in our 20’s, waiting for “that stage” in our life to be over and for our “real life” to begin. Her pessimism and self destructive tendencies drive the plot and her ability to overthink a situation or twist every good moment into an insult is unparalleled! But despite all this, you scan’t help but voraciously devour each chapter hoping that eventually she’s going to wake up and figure it all out.
Not only does this story show a masterfully crafted wit and commentary, it’s also set against the familiar bustling backdrop of local Melbourne haunts, with many mentions of our beautiful regional Victorian locales – rounding the story is such a way that you could possibly finding yourself next to Penny on your train home one evening.
The story provides opportunities for both reflection and introspection. There’s a Penny in all of us, and just like we want for our scrappy MC, we all deserve more happiness than we allow ourselves to hope for in our darkest moments. As Penny confronts her own destructive behaviour and thought processes we are reminded that the work we do on ourselves is an ongoing process and maybe the only thing stopping our “real life” from starting is our over-romanticised notion that it’s something to be achieved in the first place. In reality, that “real life” is a mythical ever moving goal post, REAL life happens outside our comfort zone and in the small moments when we’re waiting for something else.

No Hard Feelings

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