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

I don't know how I feel about this. I DO know that I wish I'd looked at the content warnings here on StoryGraph before jumping in, because literally nobody who has read this book and mentioned it to me gave me a heads up about what happens in the second part, and it was pretty traumatic for me, and a pretty common and devastating trigger for people. I honestly don't appreciate that, and I don't think it is a thing that is necessary for the impact, or the intention of the author, and feels like the fault of the marketing here.

Content Warnings

lenin_lover_69's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional funny reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

I would read anything PL writes

Content Warnings

kell's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.5

This novel hit me particularly hard as a member of "a generation", as Lockwood writes. I imagine this novel will be largely incomprehensible to folks in the future, who won't understand the countless (and often oblique) references to life online--Harambe, the tyranny of Trump (never named directly), the sudden pervasive talks about eating ass, the weird Folgers Christmas commercial, neo-Nazi tiki torches, Osama bin Laden's digital leftovers, to name just a tiny few. It's not just the references, but the overall vibe of the current moment that is caught so well (the memes about not wanting to be alive, losing your parents to far right delusions, wanting to leave this timeline, etc.)

But this book is not just a catalogue of Twitter culture. The most relatable moments are the conflicted Big Mood feelings of "what are we really doing here, why are we like this? Shouldn't there be more to life than shitposting online?" contrasted with the undeniable feeling of "but, it's kind of fun sometimes."

And that's only the first half. As the story progresses, we watch the narrator fall away from drip feed of social media updates and instead document the minute by minute progress of a slowly unfolding personal tragedy. The intrusive Extremely Online thoughts never fully dissipate, but rather transform in their relationship to "real" life.

This book might only appeal to a certain kind of person, and that person is (as we say): literally me.

Content Warnings

More...