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lucyka's review against another edition
2.0
Disappointed. The fragmented style was hard to read, the idea of the 'portal' never really made any point and then a random intense tragedy was thrown in halfway through as some kind of emotional blackmail. Honestly the more I think about it the worse it was.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Minor: Miscarriage and Pregnancy
marla_a's review
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Medical content, Miscarriage, Child death, Terminal illness, Pregnancy, Medical trauma, Grief, Death, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Mass/school shootings and Toxic relationship
Minor: Bullying
samarakroeger's review
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
this book is timely and prescient (in part two, please don't give up on it). I had no idea what the second half of the book was going to be about, just that it was a novel in two parts. Unlike some other books I've read this year where the first 80-100 pages are confusing and don't make sense (ahem, Piranesi), I actually found the internet references in the first half weirdly comforting and I flew through it. I'd primarily recommend this for children of the 90s who spent the 2010s online. This is a book about the internet written by someone who clearly has spent a lot of time online and has mixed feelings about it. This level of nuance is missing from most books discussing the internet, which are often quite anti- or quite pro-social media.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Medical content
Moderate: Miscarriage, Abortion, and Grief
kstericker's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Child death, Pregnancy, Death, Grief, and Terminal illness
Minor: Miscarriage, Police brutality, Ableism, Abortion, Sexual assault, Racism, Pedophilia, and Misogyny
vinnyvince's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Read this if you want to break the loop. It will make you want to erase your social media presence, in the least patronising, cringey and boomer like way possible.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy and Child death
Moderate: Medical content and Medical trauma
Minor: Ableism and Miscarriage
reader_in_the_meadow's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
No One Is Talking About This is a 2021 contemporary literary fiction novel by American poet, novelist and essayist Patricia Lockwood. The book consists of the novel in two parts and thee acknowledgements and has a total of 210 pages.
The main character of this story is a woman who is known for her social media presence. We, the reader, follow her on a journey through hard emotional times and her relationships. We learn of her view on the world and how social media plays a huge part in her life. Her insights on this also deliver good thinking inspiration for the reader itself.
The thing about the characters in this novel is that we do not get much to know about them besides what the woman tells us about them. That makes it a bit harder for me to talk about whether I liked them or not, but I would say that the characters were not boring or in any way forgettable. They all had their own little wars to fight and that made them individuals.
The writing was immaculate and I really really liked it. There are actually no chapters but each little text pieces that lead us through the story on a red thread. I would not describe this novel as wordsy but I am going to say that it is not easy to understand if you have a simple knowledge of English or rather how literature is written.
Even though I liked a lot in this book I think it is very confusing and comes close to being kafka-ish, which is not bad but rather gives it even more character.
I think this book can grow a very big fan base because it is a very modern and interesting piece of literature which will in my opinion be talked about for a long time. I will definitely follow what Lockwood does next because she has really enamoured me with this book.
XOXO Leon
The main character of this story is a woman who is known for her social media presence. We, the reader, follow her on a journey through hard emotional times and her relationships. We learn of her view on the world and how social media plays a huge part in her life. Her insights on this also deliver good thinking inspiration for the reader itself.
The thing about the characters in this novel is that we do not get much to know about them besides what the woman tells us about them. That makes it a bit harder for me to talk about whether I liked them or not, but I would say that the characters were not boring or in any way forgettable. They all had their own little wars to fight and that made them individuals.
The writing was immaculate and I really really liked it. There are actually no chapters but each little text pieces that lead us through the story on a red thread. I would not describe this novel as wordsy but I am going to say that it is not easy to understand if you have a simple knowledge of English or rather how literature is written.
Even though I liked a lot in this book I think it is very confusing and comes close to being kafka-ish, which is not bad but rather gives it even more character.
I think this book can grow a very big fan base because it is a very modern and interesting piece of literature which will in my opinion be talked about for a long time. I will definitely follow what Lockwood does next because she has really enamoured me with this book.
XOXO Leon
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Grief, Medical content, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Abortion and Miscarriage
crystalmethany's review
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Terminal illness, and Medical content
Moderate: Cursing
Minor: Abortion, Miscarriage, and Ableism
zarap's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Terminal illness
Moderate: Miscarriage and Abortion
archytas's review
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
"We reveled in these stories, which were not untrue. But there was some untruth in the degree to which they comforted us."
The first half of this fairly exceptional book is a savage critique of social media, and the unreality that becomes a world. Lockwood is skilled at the epigram, and the one-liners come thick and fast. The writing style bombards the reader, in a style deliberately designed to evoke the endless stimulation of the scroll, with references to meme culture, subtweets, polarised wars and the ways the in-references are cycled and recycled. It's clever, but it is all just too much and too long, and then just when you think this book is drastically overhyped, you hit the second half.
The second half has (a little) more space to breathe. It aches with joy and loss and love, and Lockwood seeks to convey how the most moving things are not reducible to pat descriptions or quips:
"The cursor blinked where her mind was. She put one true word after another and put the words in the portal. All at once they were not true, not as true as she could have made them. Where was the fiction? Distance, arrangement, emphasis, proportion? Did they only become untrue when they entered someone else’s life and butted, trivial, up against its bigness?"
Our protagonist tries to reconcile her community online ('in the portal') with this and shifts as a person, to a place both less and more grounded. This is, in the end, a morality tale - which for this reader - lay at the heart of the book's paradox: in a cry for meaning, too much here was simplified into truisms: online is unreal, meaning is in family connection - that the book had too much of the packaged emptyness it was attempting to critique. There is little meaningful exploration of the warmth and community found in social media alongside the distraction and packaging.
"“I know what you’re going through,” she said silently to the baby, “but sometimes you’ll be scrolling along, and NASA will post a picture of the stars.”"
The first half of this fairly exceptional book is a savage critique of social media, and the unreality that becomes a world. Lockwood is skilled at the epigram, and the one-liners come thick and fast. The writing style bombards the reader, in a style deliberately designed to evoke the endless stimulation of the scroll, with references to meme culture, subtweets, polarised wars and the ways the in-references are cycled and recycled. It's clever, but it is all just too much and too long, and then just when you think this book is drastically overhyped, you hit the second half.
The second half has (a little) more space to breathe. It aches with joy and loss and love, and Lockwood seeks to convey how the most moving things are not reducible to pat descriptions or quips:
"The cursor blinked where her mind was. She put one true word after another and put the words in the portal. All at once they were not true, not as true as she could have made them. Where was the fiction? Distance, arrangement, emphasis, proportion? Did they only become untrue when they entered someone else’s life and butted, trivial, up against its bigness?"
Our protagonist tries to reconcile her community online ('in the portal') with this and shifts as a person, to a place both less and more grounded. This is, in the end, a morality tale - which for this reader - lay at the heart of the book's paradox: in a cry for meaning, too much here was simplified into truisms: online is unreal, meaning is in family connection - that the book had too much of the packaged emptyness it was attempting to critique. There is little meaningful exploration of the warmth and community found in social media alongside the distraction and packaging.
"“I know what you’re going through,” she said silently to the baby, “but sometimes you’ll be scrolling along, and NASA will post a picture of the stars.”"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage and Child death
Moderate: Abortion
connieischill's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Grief, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Confinement
Minor: Ableism, Miscarriage, and Sexual assault