It takes a particular kind of talent to write about stultifying boredom in a way that feels zippy, but Halle Butler pulls it off in The New Me, which takes place smack in the middle of the gig economy. Butler captures the lows and even-lowers of being a temp, the microaggressions and the larger ones, the existential agony and yearning for the kind of fulfillment that the rest of the world seems to know how to get. Her physical descriptions are so precise and cutting you might find yourself laughing, or shivering, with recognition.