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A review by bhnmt61
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
5.0
“This did not feel like real life exactly, but nowadays what did.”
“It was a mistake to believe that other people were not living as deeply as you were. Besides, you were not even living that deeply.”
“Still in every airport she visited, there was a small nameless brown bird flying end to end, dipping and gliding through the tree trunks of passengers…”
This is a novel about being online, and how vital that can be to who you are, and yet at the same time, the people you love in real life are your real life. It is a) the first novel of b) a poet, and you can tell both a) and b) in ways that are good and not so good. It is brilliant and poignant and moving, crass and hilarious and transcendent. You never know quite what is coming next. It’s not very long, so you could probably sit down and read it in an afternoon, but I took it more slowly. I think it percolates through your brain better that way if you can manage it.
I’d tell you more about what happens, because things do eventually happen, but I went into it not knowing anything other than it was getting a lot of buzz and I’m glad I read it that way. (TW for death of a family member.) I read another review that said “this novel isn’t as profound as she thinks it is,” but it was profound enough for me. I loved it.
“It was a mistake to believe that other people were not living as deeply as you were. Besides, you were not even living that deeply.”
“Still in every airport she visited, there was a small nameless brown bird flying end to end, dipping and gliding through the tree trunks of passengers…”
This is a novel about being online, and how vital that can be to who you are, and yet at the same time, the people you love in real life are your real life. It is a) the first novel of b) a poet, and you can tell both a) and b) in ways that are good and not so good. It is brilliant and poignant and moving, crass and hilarious and transcendent. You never know quite what is coming next. It’s not very long, so you could probably sit down and read it in an afternoon, but I took it more slowly. I think it percolates through your brain better that way if you can manage it.
I’d tell you more about what happens, because things do eventually happen, but I went into it not knowing anything other than it was getting a lot of buzz and I’m glad I read it that way. (TW for death of a family member.) I read another review that said “this novel isn’t as profound as she thinks it is,” but it was profound enough for me. I loved it.