Careering was accompanied by a brilliant podcast series called Daisy is Careering, which examined the dangers of being too personally invested in a job.

Having hoovered this up, I gratefully fell upon the novel, expecting a prescient exploration of life as a member of the "precariat".

Unfortunately, this was not to be.

The story centres on Imogen, an aspiring magazine writer who naively believes oversharing about her sex life is a sure way to ascend the corporate ladder.

A millennial Bridget Jones, she is a bumbling figure who drags her second-hand Louboutins to interviews at tawdry publications no self-respecting person would willingly work for.

Buchanan alludes to personal dramas beneath her characters' work personas, but nothing is ever fleshed out.

The characters are so shallow it is hard to feel anything is at stake.

Even though she is constantly running on a threadbare bank account, class is a big blind spot for Imogen.

When she turns up flustered for a disastrous #metoo-adjacent interview at a magazine called Gentleman (noting to herself that it is "not exactly marketed as a crucial feminist text" - yes, the title is a red flag, Imogen), she feels like a "shambling, homeless person".

Similarly, when she turns up dishevelled for an afternoon tea organised by a colleague, she is affronted to be mistaken for the host's new cleaner.

Imogen's compromised-but-knowing entanglement with a sleazy older journalist has nothing of the insight into female agency demonstrated by Imogen Crimp in her recent novel A Very Nice Girl.

Similarly, her breathless, frothy style of narration lacks the deadpan devastation of Halle Butler's The New Me, which is an insightful portrait of meaningless employment.

Perhaps Buchanan's aim was to point out the pitfalls of "girlboss" culture, but her more overt forays into feminist debate revolved around intergenerational misunderstandings that are contrived and predictable.

There is a small frisson of complexity when Imogen's boss expresses concern about her involvement with the sleazy journalist while requiring her to work a significant number of unpaid hours.

As Imogen reflects crossly to herself, "there's more than one way to be exploited".

If this awareness had been more acute throughout, the novel might have succeeded.