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A review by katiegilley
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
2.0
“Previously these communities were imposed on us, along with their mental weather. Now we chose them—or believed that we did. A person might join a site to look at pictures of her nephew and five years later believe in a flat earth.”
I’m going to preface this by saying that I only finished this because 1) reviews on Goodreads said the second half of the book got better, and 2) it was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize. I agree that the second half was better, but am not convinced that it made up for the first half!
This book is about a young woman who is famous on the internet thanks to a viral tweet. The first 54% of the novel takes us through all of the Twitter memes from the last few years, with a few paragraphs about her own life sprinkled throughout. In the second half, her family experiences a tragedy that changes her life and she begins to think more about life outside of the internet. For me, the whole book read like a Twitter feed, which I found off-putting. I left Twitter for a reason! I know she was trying to show that there’s more to life than the internet and there are profound and painful experiences that teach us about true joy and deep heartbreak that we can’t adequately share in 280 characters or less. My response is to leave Twitter and dust off your blog. Harsh, I know – this book evoked an emotional response from me, which is probably a good thing!
I gave this book 2 stars – I considered 3 when I learned it was based on the experiences of her family. I just wish she would have couched those experiences in a fuller narrative and ditched the Twitter-speak earlier in the book.
I’m going to preface this by saying that I only finished this because 1) reviews on Goodreads said the second half of the book got better, and 2) it was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize. I agree that the second half was better, but am not convinced that it made up for the first half!
This book is about a young woman who is famous on the internet thanks to a viral tweet. The first 54% of the novel takes us through all of the Twitter memes from the last few years, with a few paragraphs about her own life sprinkled throughout. In the second half, her family experiences a tragedy that changes her life and she begins to think more about life outside of the internet. For me, the whole book read like a Twitter feed, which I found off-putting. I left Twitter for a reason! I know she was trying to show that there’s more to life than the internet and there are profound and painful experiences that teach us about true joy and deep heartbreak that we can’t adequately share in 280 characters or less. My response is to leave Twitter and dust off your blog. Harsh, I know – this book evoked an emotional response from me, which is probably a good thing!
I gave this book 2 stars – I considered 3 when I learned it was based on the experiences of her family. I just wish she would have couched those experiences in a fuller narrative and ditched the Twitter-speak earlier in the book.