Books that make the mundane feel surmountable or otherwise invigorating. Women protagonists preferred. Career woes making me miserable, reading for relief but not escapism.

Hi and please and thank you!

TL;DR: If I enjoy Sally Rooney, Gillian Flynn, night in the woods, over the garden wall and fleabag, what else will comfort me?

What most of these have in common is a capable female protagonist (even if she, no, especially when, she views her or her situation as ugly and overwhelming). Also themes of self-loathing but achieving something by the end of the story in spite of that. Wirt is a tortured eldest sibling and thereby gets past my usual female protag filters.

The story keeps going off the page for all of these. No deus ex machina (in terms of fixing everything) or perfectly neat ending.

I also like Lessons in Chemistry. This one was by far more cutesy than the previous sets, but the protagonist’s capability and passion made me feel like my career wasn’t hopeless and I’m not an imposter.

I have a hard time engaging with overly positive/neat endings? It makes me feel even more like my life is painful and scary when the story is wrapped up perfectly. Lessons in Chemistry is as close to a cutesy ending as I’m comfortable with.

Trying to read Good Omens but I feel so bleak that anything with humor is difficult to get through.

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Background if anyone has any books that can help with this:

I’m incredibly stressed out in my career and feel awful waking up in the morning, like an imposter with no marketable skills to move forward in her career path. Been reading like three books a week since before Christmas just to escape, but I’ve run out of the rereads and need something new. Also I’m trying to not escape but adapt so that I may better my current environment.

I’m a journalist constantly being exposed to the most godawful shit every day. I can’t ever look away from the news, but all I do is edit video and I don’t have an updated writing portfolio, so I can’t even sidestep to copywriting or publishing/editing as it stands. At least, I keep getting rejected when I try to escape due to the aforementioned defunct portfolio (last piece circa 2021). I can’t go back to school because I can’t afford to quit working. I’m so burnt out I can’t freelance after hours. I can’t take a vacation because again, need money. Some of these authors are also journalists or copywriters and that also somehow helped in a small way.

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