Mitzi Bytes

by Kerry Clare

A Toronto Star Most Anticipated Book of the Year

“Entertaining, engaging and timely, Mitzi Bytes is a pleasure to read from start to finish.” —Toronto Star

A secret life is never secret for long.

Back at the beginning of the new millennium, when the Internet was still unknown territory, Sarah started an anonymous blog documenting her return to the dating scene after a devastating divorce. The blog was funny, brutally honest and sometimes outrageous. Readers loved it. Through her blog persona, “Mitzi Bytes,” Sarah not only found her feet again, but she found her voice.

Fifteen years later, Sarah is happily remarried with children and she’s still blogging, but nobody IRL (in real life)—not even her husband or best friends—knows about Mitzi. None of them knows that Sarah has been mining their deepest feelings and confessions and sharing these stories with the world. Which means that Sarah is in serious trouble when threatening emails arrive from the mysterious Jane Q. Guess what, the first one says. You’re officially found out.

As she tries to find out Jane Q’s identity before her secret online self is revealed to everyone, Sarah starts to discover that her loved ones have secrets of their own, and that stronger forces than she imagined are conspiring to turn her world upside down.

A grown-up Harriet the Spy for the digital age, Mitzi Bytes examines the bonds of family and friendship, and the truths we dare tell about ourselves—and others.

 

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Adult Fiction, Novels, Contemporary, Chick Lit, Adult

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 2017

About the author

KERRY CLARE is the author of novels Asking for a Friend, Waiting for a Star to Fall and Mitzi Bytes, and editor of The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood. A National Magazine Award-nominated essayist, and editor of Canadian books website 49thShelf.com, she writes about books and reading at her longtime blog, Pickle Me This. She lives in Toronto with her family.

Reviews

[Laurie • The Baking Bookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mitzi Bytes is about secrets, boundaries and betrayal. It's about an anonymous blogger who goes from writing about her own life experiences to including secrets and (not always kind) observations about family, friends and acquaintances. When she receives an email threatening to divulge her identity, Sarah's life comes tumbling down around her.

Okay, so obviously, I loved that Mitzi Bytes is about a blogger. Blogging is a big part of my life and I liked how Clare addresses the issue of the anonymity of blogging. How what you type doesn't stay on your blog but is thrown out into the world where those words can hurt others. You don't blog in a bubble and Sarah learns that the hard way when her dual lives as Sarah and Mitzi are forced to converge.

Sarah was a complex gal. She's definitely flawed, not overly likable and yet I think readers will be able to relate to her on some level. We've all had mean thoughts but never voiced them. Sarah used her blog to share those thoughts but never expected them to hit their targets. Was she naive to think she'd remain anonymous with major book deals under her belt? Yes. I think the big thing that kept me from jumping on the Sarah bandwagon was the fact that she repeatedly justified her often mean spirited words. Just admit that, while the posts were what you thought at the time, they were still mean! And yet, her struggle (and it was a struggle) to realize that not everything was about her felt genuine. She's a complicated gal.

What stood out for me is Sarah's strength which, I believe, she draws from her blog. She used it as a cathartic release as she figured out who she is as a woman, mother, wife, sister-in-law and friend. I think many readers will connect with Sarah and her struggle to maintain her own identity, her strained relationships with her in-laws and her commitment to be a good Mom while the highly competitive/high-maintenance PTA super moms are ready to pounce at any weakness. But, as she soon finds out, her blog is also a weakness when her words are revealed to those around her.

One of the weaknesses in the book for me were the secondary characters. They were a diverse bunch but very much in the background with the men folk being too thinly drawn. Sarah's husband's lack of backbone and easy acceptance of the fallout was hard to believe and her brother-in-law was a one-sided jerk with no redeeming qualities to be seen. Not a good day for Team Testosterone.

What readers will enjoy is Clare's humour which is sprinkled throughout. I also enjoyed the addition of the blog archives as a great way to give the reader more background on Sarah/Mitzi and read the words that got people so upset. Honestly, I liked Mitzi and her posts about women and their balancing act between being a mother, wife, sister-in-law etc. I found the posts relatable as were the sometimes complicated relationships women have with each other.

As the blurb suggests I was expecting a 'Harriet the Spy all grown up' kind of read ... and it was. And then it kind of wasn't. The first part of the book builds this tension about Jane Q's identity but then the identity is revealed rather quickly and the focus becomes Sarah's lack of sympathy and justifying her online words repeatedly.

Overall, my feelings for this book are all over the place. I really liked some topics that were addressed but felt other aspects were lacking. This book raises several issues, specifically relationships women have with each other, the anonymity of the internet and the struggles modern women face making to good fodder for book clubs.

[Andrea MacPherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much to enjoy about this novel. The humour. The authentic take on modern life. The questions that women face--is this enough? Am I enough?

The ending felt a bit quick, but I'd recommend Mitzi.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had encountered glowing reviews of this book, though I don't remember where, and thought it was a must read for me as a lover of CanLit. Alas, the book is not literary; it's more in the lines of Sophie Kinsella.
It was really disappointing. The writing is okay; it's genre fiction so formulaic and lacking in interesting use of language. I guess this would be what some refer to as "beach reading."
Aside from the disappointment about the novel being, well, not novel, I was personally offended by the portrayal of the mother of an autistic child as a mess, unhinged, deranged. I am so tired of that trope. I don't like stock characters; as an autistic mother of two autistic children, I really dislike marginalizing stereotypes.
The suburban mother who just isn't like the other suburban mothers is a used up stock character too. If a story is set in suburbia, at least don't make the suburbanites standard we're-not-like-our-neighbours types. Having had the misfortune of growing up in the suburbs, EVERY family thinks they're the exception to the SUV, yoga pants rule (even arguing the point in their SUVs and yoga pants.)
I would usually have stopped reading a book of this type after discovering it's not my thing, but the author is a friend of a friend, so I felt obligated to finish. Hopefully neither see my review. Although, if Kerry Clare based her novel on her blogging, she's probably used to people not always liking her work.

***In which life imitates art? I've never had an author respond to a review I've posted; I write them for myself. Even friends who are on Goodreads and whose books I've "reviewed" (I used to write reviews for a journal; these things I write are my personal musings, not real reviews) have never, as far as I know read anything I've said about their work (though it's true I've liked their work more than I liked this novel.)
I'm sorry, Kerry. If I had any idea you would read this I would have written it much differently, not just my raw response that imagines no readership. I actually want to read your essays on motherhood; I think they may be more up my alley... I sure feel like a jerk right now, à la Sarah Lundy. I'm sorry.

[Lynne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was given an early copy by Harper Collins Canada (#HCCFirstLook)

I had a really hard time rating this book.

I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to Love "Mitzi Bytes" - but it just didn't happen that way.

Fifteen years ago Sarah was dealt a blow (divorce) and ended up writing an anonymous blog as "Mitzi Bytes" - a relatable woman in her 20s trying to make sense of where her life had gone wrong and move forward. Skip ahead to present day, Sarah is married, a mother and still writing her blog, and no one knows.

At least Sarah assumes no one knows until she receives an email from Jane Q "Time's up. You're officially found out."

Good concept eh?

This book spends a lot of time examining why Sarah continues to blog, even as she's moved on from her divorce and life seems to be going really well. We are able to read the blog archives (really enjoyed being able to see who Sarah was), but the thing that stands out to me is that Sarah moved from blogging about her own experiences to blogging about experiences that she observed. Hence Jane Q getting angry about the posts and wanting to "out" Sarah to the world.

My issue is that I didn't really like Sarah - and although I love a flawed character, Sarah really doesn't think she's in the wrong.

That being said, I do agree with other reviews that this would make a good book club read as there are many points for discussion: Kerry Clare is able to examine what makes a person tick, trying to balance motherhood versus having your own identity, managing those PTA/school yard relationships (the mothers not the children), accepting the in-laws for who they are (as well as their role in your life), and the major theme was friendships between women.

2.5 stars

[Karen Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an (ahem) old-school blogger and long time blog reader, MITZI BYTES churned up a lot of sentimental feelings in me. The story of an uber-successful blogger whose anonymity is threatened reminded me of the glory days of the blogosphere, what I loved about life before Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, and also why I ultimately left my blog behind.

Kerry Clare does a great job at getting into the compulsion that drives a blogger to keep writing, even when the stakes are high and the edges of that world start to wobble. That any blogger could possibly remain anonymous in today's landscape sounds a bit like fantasy, but Mitzi/Sarah's story has an element of the Superman/Clark Kent vibe that is more fun not to question too deeply. And as I discovered more and more of each side of the dual life, I also discovered that I was rooting for both of them. It's hard to be a blogger and a mother and have a career and a family and be a wife and a writer and a storyteller and a friend, and to be true to all of the parts that make up the whole. And are we even allowed to demand the space and the privacy to explore that truth?

Mitzi/Sarah's struggle felt pretty real and current to me--though I am happy to report that I have been writing this review in a room of my own.

Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for sending me an advanced copy of MITZI BYTES. Go ahead and put this on your 2017 TBR list now.

[Carling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oy vey.
This book is a hot mess of a book. Not only are there frequent tense shifts, continuity problems, and sections that just don’t matter, the ending is really fucking frustrating. Because what Mitzi writes in her blog *is* wrong. I’m particularly angry that the whole crux of the novel hedges on how she writes about her friend who is the mother to a disabled child (i.e. talking about him as a burden and her as a saint) and when she gets called out on her ableism, the book expects us to side with Sarah? Like this bitch mined the personal tragedies of her friends for decades including writing very personal stuff on there and we’re supposed to feel sorry? I’m all for complicated, complex women but Sarah is honestly an entitled asshole who never feels sorry for what she did to her friends who HAVE A POINT when they have the *gasp* audacity to claim that writing about them for profit on her blog crossed a line. This book reeks of white rich female problems and has such a shallow understanding of anything that isn’t outside the protagonist’s bubble that it doesn’t deserve to be under the label of complicated women. It might have worked better if the author was going for something other than lighthearted fluff (though there was a section were she fancied herself deep and did basic analysis on Woolf? again, this book has editing issues) but since the book itself was shallow, the character arc fell entirely flat.
1.5 stars

[Rebecca Rosenblum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a fascinating book, very very funny in parts yet at its core a really thoughtful meditation about what we give to others in relationships--friendship, marriage, parenthood--and what we keep for ourselves. The book doesn't set out to answer any question but to ask them in such a bright, insightful way that they stay with you long after the last page. I finished this book on a cross-country flight with a shrieking baby two rows behind me and surrounded by screens playing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and wasn't distracted in the slightest = five stars.

[Steph VanderMeulen · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Kerry Clare released her first book, The M Word: Conversations about Motherhood, I remember thinking, Well, that’s one I’ll never read! It’s about mom stuff and I have absolutely no desire to be a mom, much less read about being one, or even be privy to the mom culture that for the most part often makes me gag.

And then I got it and read it. Of course I did, because I’m not averse to good books, and I had a reluctant feeling it would be good. I was just as surprised as anyone who knows me that I was reading it (I also previously read The Birth House, when even the word “birth” makes me want to vomit.

The M Word was good, an intelligent collection of essays that dealt with all things mom (from being one to not being one to not being one soon after becoming one, etc.). You know what it was about the collection that didn’t make me vomit? That kept me reading and then even thinking it was a great book?

The honesty. The things that were said that so many parents don’t dare say lest they be judged, like: OMG, sometimes my kids are such little shits that I want to murder them in their sleep. If they would go the fuck to sleep!! (and there was no pressure to follow that with, “But don’t get me wrong, parenting is so worth it, I love them so much!!). Or the things that were said by women who had an abortion or who are stepmothers.

And it’s this same honesty that I appreciated so much in Mitzi Bytes (here��s me finally getting to the point!). MB isn’t just about motherhood, though a great deal of the book is from that perspective—that is, Sarah/Mitzi as a mom in relation to other moms and other kids. But it’s also about being a wife and a friend. And a woman. And a blogger.

It’s about how we navigate through the sea of relationships we forge, whether IRL or online or in passing or with extended family. In fact, this novel covers pretty much every aspect of what it means to be human, really. We get secrets and lies and mean girls and mean men and infidelity and putting on a strong facade and peer pressure and being unconventional in the face of conformity, and forgiveness and being mortified, and financial issues, and making mistakes, and identity crises. And Clare astutely nails all of it.

As a former blogger, first of a personal blog and then as a book reviewer on this blog, I related well to the questions in Mitzi Bytes of what it means to be both a real person and an online personality, whether secret or out in the open. It was this that attracted me most to the novel.

I write for myself, because it makes me feel good to write, but I can’t help but respond to the great feedback. Initially, my voice changed. I became funnier than I am in real life. At the time, snark was huge and I was good at it. I made people laugh with stupid little stories of discovering in public that my favourite jeans had a large hole in the crotch and of accidentally screaming, “Walk fucker!” to my dear sweet dog when what I meant was walk faster please and I hadn’t meant to scream it, either, in front of a horrified man who thought I was talking to him. I made the ordinary kind of “sacred” because I had no choice; I am a freelancer working from home.

But people reacted with hyperbolic appreciation and even though I knew it was exaggerated, I loved it. I made myself happy because I was writing regularly. But I was also happy because I felt popular among my readers. Not Dooce or Mitzi Bytes popular, but loved enough. And I adored the attention once I started getting free books to review and getting invited to speak on CBC’s Giller Stage and on radio programs, etc.

But sometimes I was accused of trying too hard, of losing my authenticity. And while I fought against what felt like unjust accusations with “You don’t really know me, I contain multitudes! This is me,” I did struggle with having two separate “moods.” Which actually make me feel somewhat guilty when I turned off the computer and became boring.

When I was growing up, my dad used to lament that I was two different people, at school and at home. At school, I was outgoing, happy, had lots of friends, was nice. At home, I was morose and private and angry. It was circumstantial, I argued. I was one personality exhibiting the gamut of emotions appropriate to how others made me feel! (Also, I was a teenager living in the basement except to eat and sometimes hang out in the living room reading, and raised by strict parents in whom I never confided. My confidante was Dear Diary.)

And so it is with blogging, in a way. For Sarah (Mitzi), online she was funny and divulging and of course fed by the positive reactions. At home, she was someone else—she was… not performing. Not the opposite of Mitzi, but someone else even simply because no one knew she was Mitzi. And the question is, how do we reconcile those two… and, what it became for me, why does there even have to be two? Why can’t this online personality also be me? Why was I being accused of being not genuine?

These are questions in the book—how does a person be, and how does a person be in relation to all the different people, and regarding secrets and double standards and privacy and with the strangely freeing atmosphere that the online culture creates, that of being simultaneously anonymous and unlimitedly public?

How Sarah/Mitzi deals with being found out and with everyone’s reactions to her posts (some of which we get to read, interspersed throughout so we readers can judge for ourselves) attempts to answer these questions. I won’t lie: I struggled with how people reacted in the novel to her posts and kept asking myself if I would have reacted the same had I been written about on someone’s blog. I had thought the posts rather benign, though not well veiled. But if I was the subject, would I feel violated?

I thought back to when years ago I wrote a funny post about how ignorant these two Burger King cashiers were about vegetarianism and wondered if it had been mean of me or, as I’d thought at the time, entertaining.

What is it about the online world that makes us share the way we do? And when our writing comes into question, and our ethics and morals and intentions and very own personality, how do we see past our defensive indignation (but I told only the truth! But I am a nice person! But I am being me!) to our subjects’ feelings? And how do we allow for those others’ feelings to be valid while respecting our freedom to write and be part of the online community?

Needless to say, then, this page-turner is not only a funny and well-written story that’s resonant with spot-on cultural and parenting truths (I know the latter are truths even though I’ve never experienced them, because I have honest friends who are parents, and I was once a kid, and I have a great imagination and the ability to be empathetic and compassionate); Mitzi Bytes is also a thought-provoking novel, particularly for bloggers and moms and mommybloggers, but also for anyone who has any sort of online presence. And who doesn’t these days? But like historians, we don’t portray the entire picture. And sometimes even the purposeful, naked truth is us trying to prove something in some way.

Sometimes we share in a way that is misconstrued (to our minds). We share things that are not our own—the main issue Mitzi’s readers take when they read her blog and discover themselves.

Recently, I posted a pic on Instagram of a snow message my husband had written about himself. It was only as he was seeing it on my phone that I questioned whether or not it had been mine to share. Maybe it was private for him. (Turns out he’d been somewhat embarrassed.) But I had shared because I came across it and it was a surprise and loved it, and thought it not only sweet but also affirming. It made me learn something about how I should talk to myself.

So what counts as not our own? Why shouldn’t stories we interact with be ours too, since we are in fact interpreting what we’re experiencing as part of the conversation? If we’re living our lives in public, why or how does sharing any part of our experience of someone’s life make it wrong? And how do we navigate any fallout from people claiming the stories as their own, while also remaining true to ourselves?

Also, something very interesting here: for most of the novel, I found it particularly difficult to separate the book from Kerry Clare herself, whom I’ve followed—online—now for several years. I had to keep chastising myself: stop thinking this is autobiographical! Authors hate that! You know better!!

But it was nearly impossible! Clare was present the entire time. I know she’s married, and is a blogger, and teaches a course, and has two girls, just like Mitzi. And there were a few other similarities. But that doesn’t mean that everything in this book is her personal experience. Or that her husband is like Sarah’s husband, Chris. Nevertheless, I found myself constantly wondering if her daughters really did walk on tin foil pie plates one day, for example. How much of this was real and how much did she imagine?

Knowing the author didn’t ruin anything for me, thankfully, but I did, near the end, FINALLY, realize that what I was thinking of as truth about Clare was based only on what I know of her online presence. I’ve never met her for more than a wave and hi in person! We are not friends in real life. I don’t have kids who go to her school. I don’t sit beside her on the park bench while her kids play. I don’t go to her library, I don’t sit across from her, posting pics of our tea cups and cake and talking about personal shit. I don’t know anything other than what she posts online. The tip of the iceberg, as they say.

So who do I think I really know? Who was I really bringing to my reading experience? Interesting, huh? How the novel becomes meta in this sense? Clever, damn it. Now everything is upside down.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a long-time blogger myself who has often pondered the questions of identity at the heart of this book, I was both intrigued by and a bit reluctant to read this book. Within a few chapters, though, I was invested and found it to be an interesting story. Recommended for anyone, but especially anyone who was part of the blogosphere circa 2005 to 2010 in the halcyon days of blogging.

Full review here: http://danigirl.ca/blog/2017/07/09/bl...

[OneMamaReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was waffling a bit between 3.5 and 4 stars on this book. There were paragraphs I found too convoluted, that I had to reread a couple times to try to understand where they fit into the story. However, there were so many more moments where I thought, or even said out loud, 'Yes, exactly!' This book delivers a character at once understandable, unlikable, and a bit of all of us.

Sarah's Mitzi is a diary persona, laid bare through the medium of the internet. A place where people feel they can expose truths without exposing themselves. Anonymity, at the price of your real life. She is continuously justifying the blog by saying it is all truth, while fearing retribution from those who would be offended if they found out she had been writing about their lives.

Sarah is at odds with herself the entire novel, as though creating two personas has stretched her thin and she is trying to reason herself back together. To prove she is more than a shell of a person, that her life matters.

I loved the format of the book, a blog post at the end of each chapter, which is attached to the emotion or turmoil of the chapter it belongs to. In this way, we are at the point of view of both Sarah and her 'other self' Mitzi. The same, but different. Her posts on motherhood, on women, all of those hit home with me. They made me like Mitzi, while still understanding why those whose lives she had misappropriated would be furious.

I was on the edge of my seat at the end. Comprehending Sarah's need to document her life, to ask questions and try in her own way to make sense of a world always at odds with itself. But also, feeling her emotions as she began to realize how wrong she had been. How words were powerful, both in good and bad ways.

Like Sarah, the end of the book leaves us with questions, while tidying up some of her life. The book needed to be this way, to stay true to the message. This is "real" life, where you will never have all the answers. Where we have to learn everything is not always about us, that there are others in this life too. I will not spoil the ending, but it reached a conclusion that made sense to how Sarah needed to say goodbye to Mitzi.

This book is a juxtaposition. A book both funny and emotional. Sarah's blog being both a strength and a weakness. Somewhere for her voice, but speaking to the wrong people. She is both heroine and villain. You like her, you understand her, but you hate her for revealing that this is all of us. We all judge others, envy others, compartmentalize others, and mistake others; so we can feel more real, more whole, more worthwhile, and like we are important. And we are, but so is everyone else.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I say??? I really liked it!
Should we all start a blog on our crazy covid-19 life????
Totally worth the read!!!!

[Ehbooklover · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I really liked this book. It totally reminded me of Harriet the Spy, one of my all-time favourite childhood reads. My only complaint was that the denouement was a wee bit anticlimactic. Once I knew who Jane Q. actually was, it just wasn't as engaging and I ended up struggling to maintain my interest a bit at the end.

[Jacqueline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was uncertain about this book because of the title (I thought Mitzi Bytes sounded like a YA book), but I liked the cover and was looking an easy, unchallenging read that weekend. It still managed to disappoint me. It's not fiercely intelligent (think Rachel Cusk, who writes about motherhood so much better) or easy breezy fun (think Emma Straub). It occupies a mediocre middle ground.

The prose is okay, entirely unmemorable. There's nothing distinctive or crisp or lovely or incisive about the prose style. And the book tries to be funny. Tries. You know exactly where Clare wants you to laugh, but the "humour" isn't actually funny. It's cheesy and eyeroll-inducing. ("Yoo-hoo, Sarah Bennett, shouted Starry Fiske, whose yoo-hoo was making her sound a little woo-woo." If you consider that wit, maybe you will like this book.) As some others here have mentioned, the book is also populated by secondary characters who are caricatures and stereotypes rather than well-developed, interesting characters. I abandoned the novel before I finished. There are so many better books to read. And I won't be looking for Clare's second.

[Ann Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A funny and compelling novel that took me back to the days when blogging was still a shiny new thing. (The book reminded me of a friend's experience when her in-laws discovered what she had been writing about them on her very honest blog....) A thoroughly enjoyable read.

[Sandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for bookclub

[Kendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two themes run through Mitzi Bytes: motherhood and online identity.

First, Kerry Clare explores what it means to be a mother, part of an immediate family, but also part of a broader family (a community) of other mothers, friends, and in-laws. Did you ask for these connections? No, not always. Can you make the most of these connections? Maybe. On the whole I enjoyed the motherhood/family storyline, it being above what I have often read on the topics. In a way, the novel allows room to explore some of the issues of modern motherhood (crazy school rules, the politics of the playground, the social expectations, the dullness of routine, etc.) beyond the discussion one can read online in blogs. Because there is a whole novel.

Which segues into the second theme running through the novel, exploring the identity we create of ourselves online. When we write, post photos, or otherwise engage in online communities, are we projecting our true self? Or just one aspect of ourselves? Do we have to reveal our whole self? Sarah Lundy finds joy in writing an online diary that's anonymous (or so she thinks), which allows her to be much freer in what she says. Things she can't say aloud, she writes down and finds clarity in the act.

On the whole, this was an entertaining story with some underlying heart.

[Karenmeg1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I'd read a quick synopsis of the plot and heard that this book would be coming out in early 2017, I could hardly wait. Then it came out, I got my hands on it and was initially concerned that my anticipation had gotten the better of me and I would be disappointed. Thankfully there was no need to worry. I was truly delighted and at some parts I actually laughed out loud. Sure there were moments when Sarah wasn't completely likeable, but she's totally human and witty as sin. The school drop offs, pickups, the book club, the coffee, the moms, PTA, the SUV, unflappable husband -all rather familiar to me. And yeah, I'm an old school blogger too -the only reason I didn't rate it 5 was that I didn't want to seem too biased. Will I bring it forward to book club? I have to go back to review my archives first LOL!!

[Dessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mitzi is light-hearted and entertaining but also straight-up gorgeous, complicated, and subtle. It's beautifully and lovingly written; it's a beach read with teeth; it's an ode to motherhood and secrets and complicated lives; it's an exploration of a the fear that our relationships with others - friends, spouses, children - can swallow and erase the person you are, or the person you think you are; it's an honest and compassionate portrait of a deeply flawed character who has no idea how to make things right but tries anyway; it's exactly what I needed and wanted to read even though I didn't know it. And I'm sure this wasn't the intention, but this heart-achingly lovely portrait of humble and messy domesticity and comfort has 100 per cent shored up my desire to never, ever have children.

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, but I think I liked the idea or premise more than the execution. I thought the main character was a bit exasperating and self-focused (which isn't necessarily a problem, because I often like to read books about people who are or do things I don't like). I also thought she was a bit inconsistent though, and kind of one note (no one understands my life) with little depth, which made her less compelling. I felt like I spent the first half (or more) waiting for something to happen, and then the rest of the book puzzled about how someone who is constantly wanting other people to show her empathy or compassion is incapable of taking anyone else's point of view. I really liked how the author punctuated the story with the blog entries.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't read much chick-lit, because frankly, it's not all like Marian Keyes. Mitzi Bytes however, was a hoot! And many of the issues are timeless, as relevant to small town life as to the presumed
anonymity of blogging.
I look forward to seeing the author at the 1000 Islands Writers Festival on May 6.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh, this was just ok. I have been a reader of blogs for a long time. When I saw this book, I thought it was right up my reading alley. It wasn't. I don't know what it was about it, it just wasn't as interesting as I was hoping.

[Krissy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more than I actually did.

[Suzy Krause · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book *extra* because it was about blogging and it captured all of that scene so well. But I also loved Kerry Clare's voice and all of her characters. Loved it.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exactly what I was in the mood for. A fun, pleasant read perfect for whiling away a few hours.

[Matt Root · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. Fun and thought-provoking. And by a local author too!

[Liz Harmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, breezy read, with lots of difficult characters. Considers the fallout of a confessional, present-tense age and the consequences of telling all as a blogger, even secretly.

[Libby H.C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though not a blogger, I followed a few during the early days of online writing - I had a short-lived web-page devoted to biscotti that I created for a course, and surfed around reading blogs on different topics. As entertaining and edifying as they were to read, and apparently based on the writers' experiences, I wondered how authentic some of the blogs were. They revealed details much more exciting than my life at the time. So I requested a copy of Mitzi Bytes from the First Look group at Harper Collins and enjoyed a fun read this weekend. Thank you, Harper Collins for the advance copy.

The plot of "Mitzi Bytes”, I thought was well developed, and delved into the idea of transparency online, while still being an enjoyable story to read. A cautionary tale in which Sarah Lund is a believable character and she IS the primary focus of the story in which the males are not all that strongly drawn and she and the other females (primarily other moms wrestling with full schedules demanding families, schools etc.) run into some realistic conflicts. This is a great bookclub choice with substance to encourage discussion, and a weekend or vacation read entertaining enough to compel one to the end.
As I am an employee of a book retailer I am obligated to disclose that here.

[Melanie Bagnall · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, this was a painful read. How boring was this, am I right? It was a chore just to get through it. I'm actually excited to start a new book!

[Yvonne wachowicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

What would you do if your most personal secrets were revealed to the world? And what if it was done by a friend, someone you trusted? How betrayed would you feel? Meet 'Mitzi Bytes', by novelist Kerry Clare, also the pseudonym under which 'Sara' writes. She is a grown-up 'Harriet the Spy' who started out her blog by writing about her own often comic misadventures in the dating world, but now that she's married with kids, her 'perfect' life seems to tame to blog about. So she writes instead about the life choices her thinly veiled friends and family have made, peppers her blog with her opinions and, like Harriet, she gets found out. One writes on the internet in a closed room but it goes out into the world and hurts people, badly. When her secret comes out, Sarah as 'Mitzi' is too easily forgiven, particularly by her husband. How does one hide a blog and an income from a partner? The denouement also happens much to quickly and not everyone is given a chance to explore her motive, question her morals and respond to the written betrayal of their lives, particularly her sister-in-law, to whom she's quite cruel. This book needs another rewrite. I give it 2 1/2 stars. #IndigoEmployee yswordss

[Chandel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't really care for this novel. I felt it was a bit all over the place and not enough suspense or build ups. It landed very flat for me, which is unfortunate because I was really looking forward to reading it at first it had sounded like something different than I've come across but I had a really hard time pushing through this book and it felt like a chore to get it read through