- Edition
- ISBN 9780593189603
Reviews
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I was so excited to read this book and I tried really hard to like it. But nope. It reads like the random and very rambling thoughts of an individual, which it is. I found it difficult to follow and not enjoyable unfortunately. I hate abandoning books, but this is an exception.
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The first half of this is extremely hilarious, even for someone who is medium-online, at best. The second half is a remarkable about-face that is worth the emotional whiplash. What a weird but emotional story!
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-2 stars because i didn't understand part 1 but part 2 was so damn good.
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i mean... i feel bad giving this book such a low rating since the second part of the book did make me Feel and apparently its events are autobiographical. BUT the whole premise is just... dumb? like yeah, internet bad, we should all spend much more time in the real life because you never know when time will start running out. but it could've been executed much better.
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** spoiler alert ** I’m not crying, you’re crying.
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I couldn't find much to like here. On the other hand, I don't think it's bad; I just found it tedious. The first half primarily consists of ironic repetition of Twitter clichés. "Woman with an internet addiction discovers what really matters and logs off amid a personal or family crisis" is a self-published essay cliché. (One of the reasons I appreciate Surveys is how thoroughly it resists this cliché.) (view spoiler)[Angelic, dying, disabled children are a frequently offensive cliché. (hide spoiler)]. And the characters are not sufficiently developed for No One is Talking About This to be compelling as a grief novel. Judging by some of the acknowledgements, much of the second half of the book is heavily inspired by events in the author's life, but that alone doesn't mean it's going to be more emotionally affective to me, an unrelated reader.
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What rating do you give a book that you despised 80% of? I’m Internet poisoned, I don’t need to read a book of “haha remember that meme, haha isn’t it funny how being on twitter melts your brain?” I get it’s supposed to be relatable and incisive but who da fuck wants to read an actual book about this? I’m so mad that I went against my better judgment and read this
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This book was a commentary on social media and how it has shaped us. Whether it was a good commentary, I’m still not so sure. Maybe a decent commentary on the peak of social media during the 21st century. Much of this book felt like a look at social media from a western lens and perspective. While I did understand and see what this book was trying to do, I can’t help but feel like this book was instantly dated the second that it was published due to the nature of its content, the specific internet landscape and references that won’t hold up in a few years, never mind a hundred years. A lot of this book won’t be relevant in the future, though I suppose it does function as a time capsule for this specific moment in time and cultural history. This book talks a lot about how hard it is to explain and describe internet culture to those who aren’t wrapped up in it, and I feel that sentiment will ring more true to the people of the future who read this book and try to understand the hyper-specific dated references more than anyone else. Maybe this is the intention. It is undeniable that internet culture and social media has shaped our lexicon and warped us in ways that have altered our politics, our social interactions, our identities and much more. I did like the commentary on cancel culture, doomscrolling, internet discourse, memes, online radicalization, social media addiction and chronically online social interactions. I did find the protagonist’s reference to the United States President as “The Dictator” distasteful for people who have lived under actual dictatorship, but I think that that out-of-touch western centric way of thinking was the whole point of the protagonist’s initial characterization. I was 25% of the way through this book before I realized that the protagonist is nameless. This is definitely intentional and fits the story and themes of the book very well. This book made me ponder what the information highway is doing to our brains, and what will future generations look like as the information highway grows and increases in intensity. The writing and constant commentary on social media and the internet was sometimes overwhelming, but I do feel like that was intentional. I feel like a lot of topics that were parodied and referenced in this book could have been expanded on and delved into more deeply, be given more nuance and explored through the eyes of the protagonist, but I also feel like that would have been even more overwhelming, and it would have slowed down the story and made it unnecessarily over complicated and long. To be fair, my changes wouldn’t be conducive to this story, it would most likely just become a collection of essays about the internet and online culture of the 21st century. This book felt like less of a story than it was an exploration of 21st century internet culture, and the protagonist felt less like a character as she did a vehicle for the author’s opinions and ideas about the information highway. This book does feel like it was two novels, which are literally split into two parts. The first, a surface-level overwhelming commentary on internet culture. The second, a family navigating tragedy and learning what does and doesn’t matter in life. The first part was chaotic and overwhelmingly constant, and the transition into the second part was sudden, the tone of the writing changed and the lack of constant commentary was noticeable. It felt like a veil was lifted, or the protagonist woke from a dream. There were moments when the protagonist thought in her internet language, but it was a contrast to what was going on in the story from then on. These two parts feel like entirely two different stories, and that does feel intentional. The nameless protagonist felt like a cog in the online machine in the first part, and became a fully fleshed out human being in the second part. The writing style was eloquent and succinct, and was anything but amateur. I felt envious of the author’s vocabulary and capabilities as a wordsmith. It wasn’t a surprise when I learned that the author is a poet and essayist, I could tell from her excellent prose. I recommend this book to anyone who wants an eloquent look into 21st century internet culture and a family tragedy. It was made clear from the writing (even before the acknowledgements) that the second part of the story was a very personal one to the author, and it infused the writing with so much heart and personal touch. I think that the most beautiful pieces of writing come from the personal lived experiences of the authors that write them. The final half of this book has made that very clear for me. As much as I can see and respect what the author has done here, the story itself wasn’t something I personally enjoyed as it wasn’t my usual taste, but I can still appreciate the intention of the author and recognize that they’ve done what they set out to do successfully.
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I almost can't comment on this book since Parts 1 and 2 are so incongruous, but I can at least say that the entirety of it feels very real. It certainly captures the zeitgeist of the early Trump era and it probably has a very limited shelf life. There will be diminishing returns on the understandability of this work, so if it's on your TBR list you should read it sooner rather than later.
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** spoiler alert ** I really dislike when I can't connect with a book, and specially with a book with so many accolades. I always feel is only me who doesn't like it, therefore I force myself to finish the book and see if I will eventually enjoy it. This is exactly what happened to me now. The first part of 'No one is talking about this' was confusing (to say the least). I felt I was reading someone's feed, and I thought the feed was boring. Then the 2nd part did it for me. The 2nd part is more explicit, easy to follow and made me 'click' Characters don't have a name, 'the portal' is a big part of the story and as I read, I felt the life of an influencer was too different to mine, but the 2nd part gave me a glimpse into her pregnancy and daughter's desease. At some point, I was reading a part that says 'RELATED SEARCHED' and then I thought life -digital and traditional- is all the same. Then this nameless character became human to me and I connected with her story. Her daughter's dead connected me with her life. Not sure if I liked the book but I'm happy I made it through.
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2/5 stars it's one of those books, that's meant to be quirky and not-like-other-ones but it just didn't work for me. the first half was okayish (the unnamed MC reminded me of the MC from Fleabag) but the second part just didn't work for me- fell flat even. i couldn't even relate to half the stuff like maybe it's a third-world thing but some things were just not it.
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TW/CW Death of a child; grief. Happily, I went into this book without much expectation. It made some waves on the book scene, but I didn’t see much. It’s very clever, and really funny at first; and then it deals with the death of a child (TW), which is about as far from funny as you can get. The first half of the book is essentially Us on Twitter (the Portal, in the book) or Facebook, for the two Olds still on there: the inanity, the utter drivel we fill our lives with, every day. I laughed out loud many times — and cringed, too, because who likes mirrors? Some examples at the end of this post (had to choose just a few of my highlights; there are so many things to be embarrassed over. Also, omg, SM is making us into the same person!) The second half of the book (or maybe last third? too lazy to check) deals with the protagonist’s sister finding out her unborn child has Proteus Syndrome, and the shattering that follows. It is beautifully, sensitively done. The absolute contrast between the two halves of the book, the transformation of the protagonist from a mindless Tool of the Hive Mind to a struggling human being is one of the best transitions I’ve ever read. I also learnt a lot about Proteus Syndrome, and had my heart quietly broken by the small details of a family dealing with having a child with a terminal illness. In short, a read that was very much worth my time, and one of those books that will stay with me — a book, even, that I’d be happy to re-read in the future. Come for the absolute wit and hilarious commentary on how social media is melting our brains; stay for the reminder about what matters. Rated: 9/10.
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i laughed, i cried. the only book i think that's ever actually made me do both
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3,5??
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All through the first half I was thinking this would be a three star book, and then the second half destroyed me completely and recontextualised the first half utterly. I spent the last half hour of my time with this book crying inconsolably. I’ll never read this again, and I’ll never forget it.
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You have to give this book a chance. The book is short and the writing is beautiful, so that makes it easier, but there were several moments where I was thinking - “Come on…if there is no plot, I at least need some character development.” But the book gets to its heart about halfway through. And it is worth it.
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this was not my cup of tea…at all
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2.5 stars
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I did not like this book. I don't think it can call itself a novel. I see what she was trying to do, but I just don't think it was well-done or said anything new about the internet or life. I didn't think it was funny, but maybe that's because I don't know meme culture very well, and I can't believe this book got so much hype (but also, I can...I worked in book marketing so I'm not surprised). Anyway, not very good.
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it is not so much that i want to write a complete review as much it is that i want to say, i remember reading this for the very first time and i remember feeling rooted.
there is a part that became the most memorable to me, perhaps because of the type of thing that i'm living through right now, and it was: "Every day their attention must turn, like the shine on a school of fish, all at once, toward a new person to hate. Sometimes the subject was a war criminal, but other times it was someone who made a heinous substitution in guacamole. It was not so much the hatred she was interested in as the swift attenuation, as if their collective blood had made a decision. As if they were a species that released puffs of poison, or black ink in a cloud on the ocean floor. I mean, have you read that article about octopus intelligence? Have you read how octopuses are marching out of the sea and onto dry land, in slick and obedient armies?"
yeah.
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Easy read but requires you to be “chronically online”
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I immediately got on with this. Maybe it’s because I’m a “geriatric” millennial (probably exactly the ‘sweet spot’ age for this book, tbh), but this language just made sense to me. More than making sense, I often found the prose work to be a rare cadence and diction that creates a reading flow state. It is also perfect form for the story it’s telling. We follow an Extremely Online woman who became famous for a one-time innocuous tweet, but then became so incredibly enmeshed in the culture that the Portal—which is used as a shorthand for interacting with anything social media—becomes as real as real life. If not more real. Hyper real. And her husband, not online at all, inadvertently acts as a grounding mechanism she may not know she needs. By having to explain what is funny or rage inducing or otherwise ranks as the ‘news’ of the day, she’s forced to contextualize it outside of the online space. In the later half of the book it shifts it’s insightful exploration further straddling the online and the real, when the woman becomes pregnant, and her perspective necessarily shifts. No One Is Talking About This was surprisingly affecting for me. I found it witty and biting and even hilarious sometimes. Especially the many in-jokes of the Internet that simply do not translate when you try to explain them IRL. It’s a book written by someone who is actually on social media; a rare thing, somehow, for a book on the subject. It tackles large emotions and topics with ease, and it does all this in a way I could so relate to that I didn’t really find the transition from first half to the later jarring. I saw most reviews feeling like it was completely different. Almost two separate books. Perhaps it depends heavily upon your own relationship to the Portal? I felt everything followed logically to the text. Even inevitably, perhaps. Our parasocial, simultaneously sweet and sour relationships with all things Online chronicles many a milkshake duck; both in the past and oncoming, in our (near) future.
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i'm just very much in awe of this book. it was moving and funny and sad, and definitely the most unusual reading experience i've had in a while. don't read this if you haven't been on twitter for a while.
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Strange and beautiful and heart wrenching and just not at all what I expected in the best possible way.
Highlights
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because when a dog runs to you and nudges against your hand for love and you say automatically, I know, I know, what else are you talking about except the world?
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Everything tanged in the string of everything else. Now, When her cat vomited, she thought she heard the word praxis.
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The unabomber had been right about everything! Well.. . not everything. The unabomber stuff he had gotten wrong. But rowd that is that stuff about the Industrial Revolution had been right on the money.
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Slowly, slowly, she found herself moving toward a position so philosophical even Jesus couldn't have held it: that she must hate capitalism while at the same time loving film montages set in department stores.
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[the mind] had also once been the place where you sounded like yourself. Gradually it had become the place where we sounded like each other, through some erosion of wind or water on a self not nearly as firm as stone.
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It was so tiring having to catch each new virus, produce the perfect sneaze of it, and then mutate it into something new.
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A conversation with a future grandchild. She lifts her eyes, as blue as willow ware. The tips of her braids twitch with innocence. “So you were all calling each other bitch, and that was funny, and then you were all calling each other binch, and that was even funnier?” How could you explain it? Which words, and in which order, could you possible utter that would make her understand? “…yes binch”