Reviews with content warning for Medical content - No One Is Talking About This

I do not know what to say or think. The book contains a lot of interesting, sometimes even funny observatorions but I feel the story will be out dated in a few years because some of the chromically online parts felt like that already. The main character is kinda annoying and I feel like I am supposed to feel connected to her but I don't want to and I don't feel the connection. Storytelling and language is still five stars.

I did not know the book (or the second half of it) is autofictional. I realized that just before the ending. The second half of the book is heartwarming and heartbreaking. Two halves are total opposites and it bothered me. Some connection would have been nice.

After all, I still kind of recommend the book.

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withlivjones's review

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challenging emotional funny reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This is a book about a minor internet celebrity whose perspective on life and how much of it is spent on the internet is completely changed when her family undergoes a tragedy. The first half of the book is very much no plot just vibes as the protagonist narrates her social-media-focused life, but the second half of the book, which focuses on her real life, is where it really steps up and becomes so profound and beautiful - sometimes it’s the little stories, the ones that don’t make the news, that most deserve to be told.

I thought that the writing was very clever: the whole thing is structured in small, Tweet-like sections of prose in reference to the theory that humans’ attention spans are getting shorter because of social media; the tone of the narration is littered with dark humour because many people nowadays use humour to cope with how awful life is; and the book perfectly captures the internet culture of the late 2010s - the period between the 2016 election and the pandemic when we all thought life couldn’t get any worse! - and yet at the same time there are so many absolutely beautiful lines, and you can easily tell that this is a book that was crafted with love.

I’m sure that a lot of the references will go over the heads of those lucky enough to not be chronically online, and it’s so much a product of its time that it will become outdated in a decade or so, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this book gets taught to the literature classes of the far future to get a good idea of the cultural zeitgeist of the Trump era, and those future children will stare at words like “binch” and “sneazing” with the same level of bewilderment as our parents, and the cycle will continue.

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deenmachine's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Absurd and bizarre, with unexpected depth. The descriptions of weird Internet culture, and the descriptions of a family pod experiencing shared loss and grief are both spot-on. Lockwood captures how it feels to be fully present in the bittersweet moments where you know you don't have long with someone. An absolutely unique book! Part 1 is strange and slow (which of course is by design) so stick it out to Part 2 if you're not feeling it yet.

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