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tEXt me
What if Marian Keyes and Douglas Coupland had an “author affair” a novel was born, and it was then raised by Mike Gayle?
tEXt me is a modern(ish) re-boot of the movie Brief Encounter, set in the era of technology and slightly looser morals, telling the story of Tiffany, a married 30 something who re-connects with her first love from University. The wonders of the new ‘mobile phone’ mean Tiff can safely text, flirt, and re-live her youth and that isn’t cheating, is it? Not even if the texts go a little beyond friendship. And it isn’t like she’d ever contemplate an actual affair. Would she?
tEXt me is a modern(ish) re-boot of the movie Brief Encounter, set in the era of technology and slightly looser morals, telling the story of Tiffany, a married 30 something who re-connects with her first love from University. The wonders of the new ‘mobile phone’ mean Tiff can safely text, flirt, and re-live her youth and that isn’t cheating, is it? Not even if the texts go a little beyond friendship. And it isn’t like she’d ever contemplate an actual affair. Would she?
398 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2021
1 person is currently reading
2 people want to read
About the author
Kit Derrick
9 books10 followersKit Derrick is an author and Renaissance wannabe, creator of the novel Man in the Bath and of too many short stories and poems to count. His new book, The Raven Sound, will be available on Amazon soon.
Based in North-West England, he’s worked variously in bookshops, libraries, for the NHS and the police, at a speedway track and as an academic administrator, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He’s clearly very experienced at having jobs, and this has provided him with a lot of insight on the different perspectives in the World.
When he’s not writing, or doing another job, you can often find him by a river or the sea, dreaming of being a fish. His eclectic tastes include heavy metal, Pre-Raphaelite art, Football manager games, rhubarb, science fiction, and local history.
Based in North-West England, he’s worked variously in bookshops, libraries, for the NHS and the police, at a speedway track and as an academic administrator, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He’s clearly very experienced at having jobs, and this has provided him with a lot of insight on the different perspectives in the World.
When he’s not writing, or doing another job, you can often find him by a river or the sea, dreaming of being a fish. His eclectic tastes include heavy metal, Pre-Raphaelite art, Football manager games, rhubarb, science fiction, and local history.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 12, 2023
An Early 2000s Affair!
Beneath the blast from the past of texting before social media and the internet is a really complex tale of the dangers of emotional cheating. The book is centered around a well-layered and complex main character. Even when she’s not being the best person, Derrick writes our MC in such a relatable way as someone just trying to figure life out and still trying to find herself. She is easy to root for even as you shake your head at some of her actions.
Set in a time before emotional cheating was probably even a defined term, we see our MC blur the lines of appropriate behavior while in a committed relationship. I also enjoyed the chapters from the point of view of the husband. The multiple POV keeps things fresh and an even quicker read. The texting is a fun ode to a time that barely was, and within it is a story with many layers about love, lust, and relationships.
Beneath the blast from the past of texting before social media and the internet is a really complex tale of the dangers of emotional cheating. The book is centered around a well-layered and complex main character. Even when she’s not being the best person, Derrick writes our MC in such a relatable way as someone just trying to figure life out and still trying to find herself. She is easy to root for even as you shake your head at some of her actions.
Set in a time before emotional cheating was probably even a defined term, we see our MC blur the lines of appropriate behavior while in a committed relationship. I also enjoyed the chapters from the point of view of the husband. The multiple POV keeps things fresh and an even quicker read. The texting is a fun ode to a time that barely was, and within it is a story with many layers about love, lust, and relationships.
January 31, 2022
It’s not always easy, getting older. When you start feeling middle aged and fondly remember your youth. The sensible part of you knows it’s through rose coloured glasses and it wasn’t all actually parties and fun and carefree, but those are the memories that come flooding back when your current day to day life is predictable, safe.
To know you have a good partner, but still miss the excitement of the chase or ponder the one that got away, is something I think most people experience in their lives, and any marriage that doesn’t have a ‘wobble’ like this is a rarity.
The point I’m trying to get to is that Kit Derrick captures this excellently in his book.
My heart ached for Nick at times, but I also longed for him to assert himself. Tiffany drove me mad, but I knew where she was coming from. The frustrations and feelings that the characters brought out in me showed the depth to them, very well written.
A thought provoking read and outside of what I expected.
December 15, 2021
I love this authors style. Easy to read and characters that you can engage with. I felt a lot of sympathy with Nick throughout the book as he clearly cared a lot about her. A good ending which left me satisfied. As with his other book, the author sets the scene well and you can easily feel like you are there. Well worth reading.
April 26, 2022
The cover looks very apt for a book that is about texting in the 2000’s when the only phones were Nokia’s. The blurb was interesting and made me want to pick up the book. I particularly liked the introduction chapter where the narrator describes that this is not about texting in the current age . Rather ages back when lingo was just getting set and emoji’s had not get started being made. I felt that set the context very well.
Couple of things I didn't like
The texts. Initially the narrator explains that different symbols mean different things. Later she has a few pages where the entire texting is only in symbols. If the author expects the reader to make an effort to decipher the texts, the interest has to be generated. Some of the texts have to be particularly witty. I remember to have read a Sophie Kinsella where the entire story is mostly carried out only through texts but those texts are witty, make you laugh out loud and make you go Aww.
The characters.
Tiffany- Tiffany is married to a nice guy but she finds nice boring. She wants to break the chain. Maybe even marriage. That in itself might not sound bad. However the way she describes Martin as a shit and still keeps texting him doesn't seem very sensible. In the initial chapters it seems like she mostly gets drunk, starts text, makes up her own emoji language, wakes in the morning and thinks about regretting it but doesn't really. She isn't a particularly endearing character. The author hasn't made us connect with her and feel her angst. To me she just reads like a very spoilt and entitled person.
Martin - Martin is described by the narrator as a shit and he seems to be an absolute shit. Nothing much redeeming about him. He doesn't come across as someone a past crush would be holding a candle to and on meeting after years would immediately want to cheat with. In the texting too, he does not necessarily display great wit or fantastic dialogue. Nothing about him connects to me as a reader.
Nick - He comes across as someone madly in love with his wife, knowing she is slipping away and who is desperately trying to hold on or get her back. When he tries counselling and talks about his love for Tiffany you go ‘Aww..’ but as you read it seems like he is too weak and maybe a little too needy.
At around a quarter through the book, I felt it wasn't going anywhere and decided to take a break for a few days. In my opinion, if you want to break from the book, it isn't really doing a great job of keeping the reader engaged. Got back to the book but kept taking breaks. I finished half then took a break, then went back for more and so on. Finally finished.
Overall I would say this was not quite as engaging as the premise would have it and too many symbols without interesting dialogue. I personally did not enjoy it at all.
April 13, 2023
Inspired in part by the movie, Brief Encounter, this book is set mostly in 2000, in the early days of pre-smartphone texting. tEXt Me tells the story of Tiffany, a woman in her early 30s who is married to her stable but slightly boring husband, Nick. While out shopping for jeans, she runs into Martin Peters, her first love who ended up breaking her heart in college. Before she even realizes it, Tiffany has started a secret texting (sometimes sexting) relationship with him.
Derrick does a good job getting into the head of the main character. The reader is right there with Tiffany as she vacillates between overthinking some of her texts, impulsively sending others, waiting in agony for Martin’s responses, all while questioning whether this is all really harmless fun. There were a few scenes that were too explicit for my tastes. And, as someone who wasn’t much of a texter before the current age of smartphones, I had trouble deciphering some of the longer pages written in the text language prominent in the early 2000s.
Overall, I’m glad I gave the book a chance. It was a different kind of read for me and I enjoyed trying something out of my comfort zone. I would certainly read another book by this author.
Thank you to Kit Derrick for sending me a free review copy. Receiving this copy didn’t influence my review.
My reviews are also available on my blog, www.bookpicksandpics.com.
Derrick does a good job getting into the head of the main character. The reader is right there with Tiffany as she vacillates between overthinking some of her texts, impulsively sending others, waiting in agony for Martin’s responses, all while questioning whether this is all really harmless fun. There were a few scenes that were too explicit for my tastes. And, as someone who wasn’t much of a texter before the current age of smartphones, I had trouble deciphering some of the longer pages written in the text language prominent in the early 2000s.
Overall, I’m glad I gave the book a chance. It was a different kind of read for me and I enjoyed trying something out of my comfort zone. I would certainly read another book by this author.
Thank you to Kit Derrick for sending me a free review copy. Receiving this copy didn’t influence my review.
My reviews are also available on my blog, www.bookpicksandpics.com.
April 15, 2022
tEXt Me by Kit Derrick is a story about how relationships can be developed (and destroyed) by the privacy and convenience of mobile phones. It follows the story of Tiffany, a young woman in the early 2000s when texting was really taking off, Nick, Tiffany’s husband, and Martin, the love interest.
I struggled to connect with Tiffany in this book. A good main character needs to be likeable, and Tiffany certainly is not. It is clear that she believes that she has made a mistake in marrying Nick, however her treatment of him does not reflect well on her at all. She constantly calls him boring before we even met him or saying why she feels this way, and she is very quick to betray him with her messages to Martin. Nick is really trying to make their marriage work but she just shrugs him off literally after she has been to marriage counselling. He comes across as kind and caring, and Tiffany comes across as cold and callous. Martin too is slippery and sexist - I really can’t see what Tiffany sees in his crass messages to her. I get that they had a relationship together beforehand but I cannot see anybody responding well to what he sends her.
That being said, I did like the informal writing style of Derrick and the book is a very good example of internal conflict, tension, and realisation. There is also good character development too, with Tiffany finding some redeeming characteristics in the later half. I also liked the nostalgia of the era that I grew up in, with all the nods to the trends and fads that I grew up with, and, of course, the mobile phone.
The ending was good but I think that it held back the rest of the book. It was like the author needed to keep a door open for the characters and I think that is why I struggled to like Tiffany and why she came across as the bad guy so much. I also liked the last chapter - it was non-essential but we clearly see where life (and technology) is taking the next generation. It does make you think how far we have come but yet everything is exactly the same at a fundamental level.
All in all, this is a good book even if the characters are not entirely likeable. I think maybe telling the story from Nick’s perspective of maybe finding the messages and trying to fix his marriage accordingly would have been better as it would have given us a more likeable lead. Still, the author certainly knows his craft and uses his skill to weave an interesting tale for many to enjoy.
I struggled to connect with Tiffany in this book. A good main character needs to be likeable, and Tiffany certainly is not. It is clear that she believes that she has made a mistake in marrying Nick, however her treatment of him does not reflect well on her at all. She constantly calls him boring before we even met him or saying why she feels this way, and she is very quick to betray him with her messages to Martin. Nick is really trying to make their marriage work but she just shrugs him off literally after she has been to marriage counselling. He comes across as kind and caring, and Tiffany comes across as cold and callous. Martin too is slippery and sexist - I really can’t see what Tiffany sees in his crass messages to her. I get that they had a relationship together beforehand but I cannot see anybody responding well to what he sends her.
That being said, I did like the informal writing style of Derrick and the book is a very good example of internal conflict, tension, and realisation. There is also good character development too, with Tiffany finding some redeeming characteristics in the later half. I also liked the nostalgia of the era that I grew up in, with all the nods to the trends and fads that I grew up with, and, of course, the mobile phone.
The ending was good but I think that it held back the rest of the book. It was like the author needed to keep a door open for the characters and I think that is why I struggled to like Tiffany and why she came across as the bad guy so much. I also liked the last chapter - it was non-essential but we clearly see where life (and technology) is taking the next generation. It does make you think how far we have come but yet everything is exactly the same at a fundamental level.
All in all, this is a good book even if the characters are not entirely likeable. I think maybe telling the story from Nick’s perspective of maybe finding the messages and trying to fix his marriage accordingly would have been better as it would have given us a more likeable lead. Still, the author certainly knows his craft and uses his skill to weave an interesting tale for many to enjoy.
January 3, 2022
A 4.5 star read.
For those who grew up as mobile phones became more popular and remember what it was like when text messages cost you and sending them was all about monitoring what you said to keep costs down this book is a perfect read. This is a story which looks at Tiffany and her married life which is going through a slightly tougher time when an old flame comes back into her life but can a Nokia 3310 save her marriage or will it just lead to things being worse and eventually being ruined?
This is a great read and one which I really did love reading and would recommend to those who remember the days of the Nokia 3310 and like a romance book. The small markdown is that towards the end I began to feel like it was a little slower but understand why this was the case. I also felt that we could have seen some further info on Tiffany and her standard day to see how the phone was impacting her life.
I do really think this is a great book and the small markdown I know to be personal taste and take on things but this is an author who I know I will be checking out more work from.
For those who grew up as mobile phones became more popular and remember what it was like when text messages cost you and sending them was all about monitoring what you said to keep costs down this book is a perfect read. This is a story which looks at Tiffany and her married life which is going through a slightly tougher time when an old flame comes back into her life but can a Nokia 3310 save her marriage or will it just lead to things being worse and eventually being ruined?
This is a great read and one which I really did love reading and would recommend to those who remember the days of the Nokia 3310 and like a romance book. The small markdown is that towards the end I began to feel like it was a little slower but understand why this was the case. I also felt that we could have seen some further info on Tiffany and her standard day to see how the phone was impacting her life.
I do really think this is a great book and the small markdown I know to be personal taste and take on things but this is an author who I know I will be checking out more work from.
October 26, 2022
Intriguing and sort of nostalgic read although I was too young to do what these pair did at that time!
Fun, but did expect more to develop in the middle. Fab ending.
Fun, but did expect more to develop in the middle. Fab ending.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews