I liked this author’s last rage-filled book, THE NEW ME, and I like this one too. THE NEW ME was about an angry woman in Chicago who concludes she has wasted her twenties. BANAL NIGHMARE is about a pretty similar woman in her early thirties who has left Chicago to return to her hometown.
The main character is recovering from a break-up, and I guess the book functions as a prism for looking at the particular unhappiness that comes with deciding in early mid-life that you are going to have to start again. Every romantic relationship in the book is a mess, which makes it pretty depressing (and unlikely) reading. But I still enjoyed the miserable, defeated energy of the book.