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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
I needed to take some time before I collected my thoughts about this book. By the last page, I was in tears, trying to really compose myself and wipe my eyes so I could actually read the last few words. This might be one of the better Internet-Culture-Contemporary-Fiction novels that I have read.
The protagonist is a very broken individual. I really find flawed main characters to be one of the hardest characters to read and write, however this approach appeared to be an interesting take on this trope, as the main character is you. Prasifka, seemingly well connected to the language of the internet, creates a Y/N insert for the reader to gain introspection about their relationship with the internet. Intentional or not, this choice was effective in a way that it directly spoke to my own experiences as an awkward, isolated, online child, and spoke with a prophetic, sympathetic tone. There was an intensely strong theme of, "you will get through this". "You will be able to heal from the damage that this hulking, omniscient online structure has given you".
Overall, Prasifka's novel is a beautiful and haunting deep dive into how the internet and social media warps us into our worst selves, and the unique social grooming that generation Z and millennials have faced at the hands of internet culture. It deals with internet porn's haunting impact on the young mind in a way that I have never seen before, all encompassed into a wonderful second-person bildungsroman. It is a book that I would recommend for all chronically online something-teens, that will leave you with a pit in your stomach and an urge to add a screen-time checker to your phone.
The protagonist is a very broken individual. I really find flawed main characters to be one of the hardest characters to read and write, however this approach appeared to be an interesting take on this trope, as the main character is you. Prasifka, seemingly well connected to the language of the internet, creates a Y/N insert for the reader to gain introspection about their relationship with the internet. Intentional or not, this choice was effective in a way that it directly spoke to my own experiences as an awkward, isolated, online child, and spoke with a prophetic, sympathetic tone. There was an intensely strong theme of, "you will get through this". "You will be able to heal from the damage that this hulking, omniscient online structure has given you".
Overall, Prasifka's novel is a beautiful and haunting deep dive into how the internet and social media warps us into our worst selves, and the unique social grooming that generation Z and millennials have faced at the hands of internet culture. It deals with internet porn's haunting impact on the young mind in a way that I have never seen before, all encompassed into a wonderful second-person bildungsroman. It is a book that I would recommend for all chronically online something-teens, that will leave you with a pit in your stomach and an urge to add a screen-time checker to your phone.
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
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:
Complicated
i feel like this is 2 books in 1: you have the story about growing up online and the lovestory with lorcan. i felt the book was strongest when it described the experience of growing up online, but it does feel fitting that the focus from online to offline comes when she goes to college. i feel like this is a shared experience in getting older and existing in different spaces, but it felt kinda off that it then turned into a love story about lorcan being the right person all along... also with him having barely an online persona and even no social media at all in the end. i still liked that it ended on a hopeful note, but i felt like the ending glossed over a lot of things, mainly the fact that she said she didn't believe men could feel love without sexual desire, and we never address this once she is with lorcan. kind of seems like a "good guy" solves this problem... same goes for evan and his implied misogyny online (maybe even incel behaviour..) and him then having a girlfriend, who is "the problem" because she flirted with lorcan and was "too clingy" with evan. . still, the experiences catherine wrote about were heartbreaking and recognisable, and took me back to my teenage years, and i often read the book with tears forming in my eyes. i think the book would have been better if it only explored those experiences or maybe if it had more pages to explore the love story and the "growing up" narrative, so it didn't feel as random and more embedded in the novel.
adventurous
reflective
medium-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
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
This Is How You Remember It is an introspective novel examining the experience of a woman growing up with access to the internet. As a 9-year-old, her first contact with the World Wide Web is innocent through online pet toys, but it quickly darkens through the discovery of pornography and the rise of social media platforms. The novel is written in the second person, which is always a choice that can quickly go either way, but in this case, it only amplifies the emotions.
What Catherine Prasifka describes will be eerily relatable to most women who grow up with the internet, especially women with parents who might not have known exactly how the internet works and what effects it is bound to have. If you haven't personally experienced the feelings and events described throughout the book, you'll probably have a friend who has. And that's scary. I assume by now we're all aware of the (usually) dangerous sexualisation and minimalisation of abuse that is often facilitated by early unsupervised exposure to the internet. Reading about it here felt a bit too close to home. I was tearing up throughout most of the novel. I think the book does a great job of pointing out these things and reminding you of what you might be missing by how you choose to interact with the world around you, all without condescending. The conversations with the gist of 'you should look up from your phone to see what you're missing' can feel very condescending, especially when it oftentimes doesn't feel like you can't choose how you interact with the internet. And there are so many platforms that have helped, that have made people feel seen when the 'real world' might not be pleasant either. In this book, the reminder of what you might be missing isn't coming from a place of condescension or arrogance at all, it's a plea from a narrator who's telling you that they've lived the same experiences as you, they've felt the same things. It's not a judgement of how you've behaved but a reminder that it can feel awful. That the hole you feel in your stomach isn't there because you're wrong but because someone put it there.
It's quite difficult to just sum up the experience of reading this book. It was... raw? Kind of scary. Deeply sad. But also hopeful. I really really really liked it. I'll think about it a lot.
What Catherine Prasifka describes will be eerily relatable to most women who grow up with the internet, especially women with parents who might not have known exactly how the internet works and what effects it is bound to have. If you haven't personally experienced the feelings and events described throughout the book, you'll probably have a friend who has. And that's scary. I assume by now we're all aware of the (usually) dangerous sexualisation and minimalisation of abuse that is often facilitated by early unsupervised exposure to the internet. Reading about it here felt a bit too close to home. I was tearing up throughout most of the novel. I think the book does a great job of pointing out these things and reminding you of what you might be missing by how you choose to interact with the world around you, all without condescending. The conversations with the gist of 'you should look up from your phone to see what you're missing' can feel very condescending, especially when it oftentimes doesn't feel like you can't choose how you interact with the internet. And there are so many platforms that have helped, that have made people feel seen when the 'real world' might not be pleasant either. In this book, the reminder of what you might be missing isn't coming from a place of condescension or arrogance at all, it's a plea from a narrator who's telling you that they've lived the same experiences as you, they've felt the same things. It's not a judgement of how you've behaved but a reminder that it can feel awful. That the hole you feel in your stomach isn't there because you're wrong but because someone put it there.
It's quite difficult to just sum up the experience of reading this book. It was... raw? Kind of scary. Deeply sad. But also hopeful. I really really really liked it. I'll think about it a lot.
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I absolutely loved her first book so when I saw this knew I had to give it a go! A little too dark and triggering for me, but I suppose that comes with being a similar age and having similar experiences as the character in the book. Definitely wasn’t prepared for this but it was very well written!!
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Whilst I see some semblance of my own adolescent years in this book and it was enlightening to revisit it from this outsiders’ perspective, I found the protagonists’ passive and toxic choices repetitive and unlikeable, her relationship with her parents shallow and unexplored and Lorcans’ steadfastness undeserving and unrealistic.
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
First book of 2025 and... I didn't love it.
Minor(ish) spoilers for the whole book ahead, so don't read this review if you want to go into the book knowing nothing.
There were a few things this book did well - the descriptions of tween/early teen friendship issues/bullying, which brought me right back to that stage of life (although in my case no phones were involved); and it made me think about young people and internet use in general, without offering any easy answers (especially as I have tween-age children) - sure you can say "just don't let them use it" but that brings its own issues of isolation when the internet and "real life" are so entwined. Keeping lines of communication and understanding open between the generations seems to be the ideal, and not something that happened in the main character's family.
The writing style is rather opaque and utilises various literary techniques that aren't necessarily easy on the reader - the novel is told entirely in the 2nd person (got to admit I hated this, though I did get used to it after a while), it jumps around in time without any clear markers, and the main character doesn't have a name. There is also a magical realism element which I *really* disliked and didn't seem to fit at all. It was a humourless book and whilst I am not opposed to reading about "dark" topics (in fact to some extent I seek that out) there has to be some balance or it all just feels depressing.
There isn't much plot at all and a lot of the second half in particular centres around a will they/won't they romance that tbh I just couldn't care about and was largely hindered purely by the two people concerned avoiding speaking to each other openly.
It didn't help that none of the main characters were particularly interesting or likeable. Even the MC was completely bland. She went through some traumatic experiences which did shape her and I'm not discounting that. But apart from these experiences, her internet usage and her relationships with a handful of friends/family members, we know nothing about her. What are her interests, her hopes and dreams?
A lot of people have enjoyed this book, so it perhaps is the case that it just didn't work *for me* and my preferences for fiction. I'm probably a bit too old for it too, as a lot of the positive reviews of this book reference how nostalgic people found it, and as an elder Millennial phones weren't ubiquitous until I was nearing 30, and whilst I used the internet at school and university it was because I was a nerd, not because it was what everyone did.
Plot/compellingness 2/5
Themes 3/5
Characters 1/5
Emotional resonance 2/5
Writing style 2/5
Minor(ish) spoilers for the whole book ahead, so don't read this review if you want to go into the book knowing nothing.
There were a few things this book did well - the descriptions of tween/early teen friendship issues/bullying, which brought me right back to that stage of life (although in my case no phones were involved); and it made me think about young people and internet use in general, without offering any easy answers (especially as I have tween-age children) - sure you can say "just don't let them use it" but that brings its own issues of isolation when the internet and "real life" are so entwined. Keeping lines of communication and understanding open between the generations seems to be the ideal, and not something that happened in the main character's family.
The writing style is rather opaque and utilises various literary techniques that aren't necessarily easy on the reader - the novel is told entirely in the 2nd person (got to admit I hated this, though I did get used to it after a while), it jumps around in time without any clear markers, and the main character doesn't have a name. There is also a magical realism element which I *really* disliked and didn't seem to fit at all. It was a humourless book and whilst I am not opposed to reading about "dark" topics (in fact to some extent I seek that out) there has to be some balance or it all just feels depressing.
There isn't much plot at all and a lot of the second half in particular centres around a will they/won't they romance that tbh I just couldn't care about and was largely hindered purely by the two people concerned avoiding speaking to each other openly.
It didn't help that none of the main characters were particularly interesting or likeable. Even the MC was completely bland. She went through some traumatic experiences which did shape her and I'm not discounting that. But apart from these experiences, her internet usage and her relationships with a handful of friends/family members, we know nothing about her. What are her interests, her hopes and dreams?
A lot of people have enjoyed this book, so it perhaps is the case that it just didn't work *for me* and my preferences for fiction. I'm probably a bit too old for it too, as a lot of the positive reviews of this book reference how nostalgic people found it, and as an elder Millennial phones weren't ubiquitous until I was nearing 30, and whilst I used the internet at school and university it was because I was a nerd, not because it was what everyone did.
Plot/compellingness 2/5
Themes 3/5
Characters 1/5
Emotional resonance 2/5
Writing style 2/5
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes