Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

16 reviews

asurasantosha's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

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

2.75

So, I'm pretty convinced this book is highly rated almost entirely because of the second part of the book. The second part of this book has a plot and it has depth and emotion. The second part is something a reader could imagine, place themselves into, possibly relate to. Perhaps that's just my take because I've had an extremely similar life experience to the story told in the second half of this book.

Except my own nephew was in this world for eight years before we had to say good bye in nearly the exact same way. I felt like when they were saying goodbye to baby in the hospital, I was reading about my own experience.

Outside of the redeeming bits of Part 2, I did not enjoy this book. The first part doesn't in any way feel like a novel to me. It's almost a long series of thought vomit. It was so hard to follow any plot, events, storylines. I am in fact still not convinced any of this book is a novel. It might be prose poetry. There are some beautiful, lyrical, or thought-provoking quotes in this book. There are a great many of them in fact. Some of the individual lines are genius and really make you think. I just wasn't a fan of the experiemental-ness of the format. I don't like when the word "novel" is on the cover, and there is a summary on the back about the "story", except there is no story and you don't feel like you're reading a novel at all for the first 60% of the book.

The fact that part one and part two felt so completely different from one another was another lost point from me. I think I get what she was going for, but part one was just so long and so nearly unbearable. I considered dnf-ing this book multiple times.

So if you really like lyricism in books, don't care about plot or characters. Like literature that's quite philosophical, don't mind taking a long while to get somewhere in a book, you will probably like this one.

If you are impatient for things to happen, like getting attached to or invested in characters, love a good storyline, and care more about pacing than descriptions, maybe skip this one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Sexual content

traa's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Grief, Medical content, and Child death

Moderate: Drug use, Sexism, Classism, Racism, Alcohol, Pregnancy, Cursing, and Sexual content

Minor: Mass/school shootings, Deportation, Ableism, and Cultural appropriation

rory_john14's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Addiction, Sexism, Sexual content, Cursing, Child death, Misogyny, Grief, Medical content, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Abortion, Alcohol, Ableism, Child abuse, and Medical trauma

Minor: Rape, Drug use, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Classism, and Infidelity

flatreads's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Child death

aliyachaudhry's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful sad 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Death, Pregnancy, Abortion, Cursing, Child death, Chronic illness, Grief, Sexual content, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Racism, Mass/school shootings, and Ableism

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

emotional reflective

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Grief, Medical content, Sexual content, Child death, Pregnancy, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Drug use, Racism, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, Confinement, Incest, War, Abortion, Addiction, Mass/school shootings, Cultural appropriation, and Vomit

nialiversuch's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Grief, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Abortion

Moderate: Pregnancy, Sexual content, and Alcohol

bluejayreads's review against another edition

emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated

3.0

Weird, sad, and ultimately unsatisfying. I initially really loved the bizarre, disjointed style, the wacky observations, the over-the-top and yet also completely spot-on depiction of internet culture. The text from the unnamed protagonist's mother was a turning point, but not in the way I expected. It was less "sudden tragedy causes protagonist to reevaluate her time online" and more "tragic news causes protagonist to switch from being consumed by internet to consumed by other situation." It wasn't bad, necessarily, but it was emotionally intense and less an intentional reevaluation (which is what I wanted to see) than the protagonist spending less time online due to circumstances outside her control and becoming less internet popular because of it. The first half was great, I just wanted the second half to be something else entirely.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Grief, Medical content, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual content

Minor: Infidelity and Ableism

andrea_mtz27's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

"No One Is Talking About This" isn't perfect, but the reason I rated it so highly is because it's stuck with me more than any other book I've read recently. Weeks after finishing it, I've continued to think about both the content and the writing style.

This book definitely isn't for everyone. I can see how someone who doesn't have a similar relationship with internet culture could find the frequent references grating or nonsensical. However, I found the way that Lockwood wrote about "the portal" weaving itself into everyday life relatable and realistic. The first half was fun, but it was the second half that made this book deeply special. The way the main character's relationship with the portal changed over the course of a major life event felt so real,

and the emotional delivery of the hardship her family endured together was extremely moving

.

I don't have the exact words for why this book made such an impression on me, but I do I highly recommend it to anyone who has spent too many hours scrolling through twitter, reddit, or tiktok.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, and Grief

Moderate: Abortion

Minor: Sexual content

kjulie's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

I don’t really know how to describe this book. The first part reads like little snippets of thoughts from someone headfirst invested in social media and the online life. As a fairly disengaged online viewer, a lot of what is referred to went over my head, but I still understood some of the intention. There is a shift in part two, and some people have commented that it’s like two separate books. I’m not sure I agree. I think the second part is an emotional conversation about how to go on when everything has changed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death

Minor: Sexual content