Scan barcode
A review by naleagdeco
Technically, You Started It by Lana Wood Johnson
4.0
I am very much not the audience of this book, so be aware of that; I am probably the age of their parents.
Randomly picked this up as I was grabbing random things from the library out of boredom; it reminds me of the movie "Before Sunrise" but set in some American high school and conducted entirely by iMessage / SMS.
Just like "Before Sunrise", I'm sure nobody actually converses the way these two do, but there is some underlying truth about how we perceive or desire connection and romance and exploring our selves that the book does focus on, and at least for me, someone who values shows about interpersonal relationships, I thought this book does a good job.
As someone who also enjoys the mechanics of interpersonal relationships, it was also interesting to me to get a data point of what someone claims the modern youth think about:
* They manage to maintain that kind of flirtatious antagonism while also being more considerate than the normative fiction I would have grown up with
* They dislike David Lynch as existential and pretentious. As a fan of David Lynch, I am glad he is still ruining the zeitgeist. But maybe this reveals something about who the author is and who the author is ultimately winding up writing this book for? I am not sure.
* Teen cruelty amongst friends still exists, but is done more softly as compared to the straight up trolling I remember. This seems like both a positive and a negative of recent social discourse, people have to work harder to commit and detect it.
Overall, while it is yet one more teen romance, I thought it executed it well within the projection/wish fulfillment that teen romance is. It is inherently a bit confusing because a lot of out-of-chat events are referred to after the fact, but with a little effort and mapping nothing stretches too far given the basic premise.
Randomly picked this up as I was grabbing random things from the library out of boredom; it reminds me of the movie "Before Sunrise" but set in some American high school and conducted entirely by iMessage / SMS.
Just like "Before Sunrise", I'm sure nobody actually converses the way these two do, but there is some underlying truth about how we perceive or desire connection and romance and exploring our selves that the book does focus on, and at least for me, someone who values shows about interpersonal relationships, I thought this book does a good job.
As someone who also enjoys the mechanics of interpersonal relationships, it was also interesting to me to get a data point of what someone claims the modern youth think about:
* They manage to maintain that kind of flirtatious antagonism while also being more considerate than the normative fiction I would have grown up with
* They dislike David Lynch as existential and pretentious. As a fan of David Lynch, I am glad he is still ruining the zeitgeist. But maybe this reveals something about who the author is and who the author is ultimately winding up writing this book for? I am not sure.
* Teen cruelty amongst friends still exists, but is done more softly as compared to the straight up trolling I remember. This seems like both a positive and a negative of recent social discourse, people have to work harder to commit and detect it.
Overall, while it is yet one more teen romance, I thought it executed it well within the projection/wish fulfillment that teen romance is. It is inherently a bit confusing because a lot of out-of-chat events are referred to after the fact, but with a little effort and mapping nothing stretches too far given the basic premise.