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A review by pixe1
I Hate the Internet by Jarett Kobek
3.0
I wish this book had made the ToB shortlist over Black Wave. Not that I think for a second it would have beat Underground Railroad, but this was also an indie novel set in San Francisco and I took more away from it than Black Wave.
This book is not perfect. It's exhausting and obnoxious, and might even call itself that. There are some very astute observations about modern society and the internet, and I really wanted to discuss those observations with people I knew, until I realized that no one I know has read this book. The format of the book is also such that you are bombarded with ideas and quickly forget a great insight because you've covered 8 other topics in the following three pages (which does seem to be a deliberate choice on the writer's part). There were also some opinions in here that felt a little too regurgitated or naive - I would have agreed with them more if I'd read this book when I was 21. Now it seems passé, but again I feel like the narrator would have made the same comment in a patronizing voice and it would have fit right in with the rest of the book.
This book is not perfect. It's exhausting and obnoxious, and might even call itself that. There are some very astute observations about modern society and the internet, and I really wanted to discuss those observations with people I knew, until I realized that no one I know has read this book. The format of the book is also such that you are bombarded with ideas and quickly forget a great insight because you've covered 8 other topics in the following three pages (which does seem to be a deliberate choice on the writer's part). There were also some opinions in here that felt a little too regurgitated or naive - I would have agreed with them more if I'd read this book when I was 21. Now it seems passé, but again I feel like the narrator would have made the same comment in a patronizing voice and it would have fit right in with the rest of the book.