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None of This Is Serious
'Extraordinary' Naoise Dolan
'Seriously good' Louise Nealon
Dublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They've got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. She's overshadowed by her best friend Grace. She's been in love with Finn for as long as she's known him. And she's about to meet Rory, who's suddenly available to her online.
At a party, what was already unstable completely falls apart and Sophie finds herself obsessively scrolling social media, waiting for something (anything) to happen.
None of This Is Serious is about the uncertainty and absurdity of being alive today. It's about balancing the real world with the online, and the vulnerabilities in yourself, your relationships, your body. At its heart, this is a novel about the friendships strong enough to withstand anything.
'Seriously good' Louise Nealon
Dublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They've got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. She's overshadowed by her best friend Grace. She's been in love with Finn for as long as she's known him. And she's about to meet Rory, who's suddenly available to her online.
At a party, what was already unstable completely falls apart and Sophie finds herself obsessively scrolling social media, waiting for something (anything) to happen.
None of This Is Serious is about the uncertainty and absurdity of being alive today. It's about balancing the real world with the online, and the vulnerabilities in yourself, your relationships, your body. At its heart, this is a novel about the friendships strong enough to withstand anything.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 7, 2022
183 people are currently reading
10714 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 868 reviews
April 20, 2022
If I read another variation of the sentence “I refreshed social media” once more I think I might implode.
January 15, 2023
‘sad woman in her 20s’ novel meets the apocalyptic tone of adam mckay’s ‘don’t look up’ on netflix.
this book does a great job at capturing the confusing, in-between period after graduating university and trying to figure out what your next step will be. the apocalyptic, sci-fi element of the ‘crack in the sky’ was an interesting and creative vehicle in order to provide commentary about the use (and misuse) of the internet and how we largely engage with major world events/disasters through our screens. the relentless cycle of switching between social media apps to fill a void and reading everyone’s opinions on every subject, opinions which we mostly don’t care about and don’t agree with, felt very rooted in the present moment of 2022.
to me, none of this is serious felt like both a covid response novel and also a call to action for climate change, making the reader, and our protagonist sophie, consider some of the most difficult questions of our time: how do we reckon with the world when it’s falling apart? how do we figure out our place in the world when it may not be here for much longer?
parts of the book did become a little repetitive, especially with sophie’s constant musings on the internet and the news which revolved around the same few arguments. i also would’ve liked to see some greater depth in sophie as a character. she very much fitted the foil of the usual protagonists in these ‘sad twenty-something novels’, but unfortunately i felt that she lacked the level of complexity that i seek from these kinds of characters.
while it sadly did fall a bit flat for me, you may enjoy this one if you’re looking for an existential book with a sci-fi element and a lot of current social commentary.
[gifted by the publisher in exchange for an honest review]
this book does a great job at capturing the confusing, in-between period after graduating university and trying to figure out what your next step will be. the apocalyptic, sci-fi element of the ‘crack in the sky’ was an interesting and creative vehicle in order to provide commentary about the use (and misuse) of the internet and how we largely engage with major world events/disasters through our screens. the relentless cycle of switching between social media apps to fill a void and reading everyone’s opinions on every subject, opinions which we mostly don’t care about and don’t agree with, felt very rooted in the present moment of 2022.
to me, none of this is serious felt like both a covid response novel and also a call to action for climate change, making the reader, and our protagonist sophie, consider some of the most difficult questions of our time: how do we reckon with the world when it’s falling apart? how do we figure out our place in the world when it may not be here for much longer?
parts of the book did become a little repetitive, especially with sophie’s constant musings on the internet and the news which revolved around the same few arguments. i also would’ve liked to see some greater depth in sophie as a character. she very much fitted the foil of the usual protagonists in these ‘sad twenty-something novels’, but unfortunately i felt that she lacked the level of complexity that i seek from these kinds of characters.
while it sadly did fall a bit flat for me, you may enjoy this one if you’re looking for an existential book with a sci-fi element and a lot of current social commentary.
[gifted by the publisher in exchange for an honest review]
January 12, 2022
Catherine Prasifka’s part of a generation of Irish women writers whose work forms a wider, ongoing conversation: Naiose Dolan, Niamh Campbell and, inevitably, Sally Rooney who’s also Prasifka’s sister-in-law. All of them are engaged in a project of sorts, a near-incestuous exploration of the banality and trauma of everyday existence for a particular group of predominantly heterosexual, predominantly white, cis, university-educated women. Women who ostensibly count among the privileged yet struggle to find a footing in their worlds. Prasifka’s debut novel’s no exception, it centres on Sophie trapped in a bubble of relentless self-scrutiny, intensified by her immersion in a constant stream of social media. A recent graduate living at home in Dublin, with no job and uncertain prospects, she constantly measures herself against her wealthier or more self-confident friends and, above all, her high-achieving twin Hannah. It’s a difficult book to assess entirely in its own right, it so clearly echoes Dolan and Rooney, with its emphasis on the messy contradictions of life, and its close focus on the minutiae of the day to day. But what sets it apart are its dialogue with genre fiction and Prasifka’s explicit critique of her corner of Irish society, the politics, the social inequality and the lingering after-effects of growing up with Catholicism.
What starts out as realist suddenly tips over into the territory of the speculative when a giant rift appears in the skies. The crack, as it comes to be known here, sits uneasily alongside other aspects of the narrative, at least at first, a potentially annoying gimmick or heavy-handed metaphor for the precarity of the contemporary world. But as Prasifka’s story progressed, the juxtaposition between this uncanny event and Sophie’s isolation and social anxieties captured something of the bizarre nature, the uneasiness, of living in this particular moment, in a world made horror film with its round-the-clock scenes of devastation, from famine to climate change, to violent acts, and conspiracy groups. A horror film that plays out on a split screen, global chaos running alongside ongoing mundane and small-scale individual losses and humiliations, tragic in its absurdity.
Overall, I thought this was an interesting, inventive variation on familiar themes of alienation and urban anomie, and a promising start to Prasifka’s writing career. However, it’s not an entirely successful piece, very much a first novel with all the associated ills. Prasifka’s prose’s uneven, there are passages that read like the literary equivalent of stock footage, the central conceit represented by the crack’s underdeveloped, and ultimately I suspect what readers will make of this largely depends on how much they care, or feel made to care, about this rather select portion of humanity. As for me, I'm pretty much on the fence.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Canongate for an arc
What starts out as realist suddenly tips over into the territory of the speculative when a giant rift appears in the skies. The crack, as it comes to be known here, sits uneasily alongside other aspects of the narrative, at least at first, a potentially annoying gimmick or heavy-handed metaphor for the precarity of the contemporary world. But as Prasifka’s story progressed, the juxtaposition between this uncanny event and Sophie’s isolation and social anxieties captured something of the bizarre nature, the uneasiness, of living in this particular moment, in a world made horror film with its round-the-clock scenes of devastation, from famine to climate change, to violent acts, and conspiracy groups. A horror film that plays out on a split screen, global chaos running alongside ongoing mundane and small-scale individual losses and humiliations, tragic in its absurdity.
Overall, I thought this was an interesting, inventive variation on familiar themes of alienation and urban anomie, and a promising start to Prasifka’s writing career. However, it’s not an entirely successful piece, very much a first novel with all the associated ills. Prasifka’s prose’s uneven, there are passages that read like the literary equivalent of stock footage, the central conceit represented by the crack’s underdeveloped, and ultimately I suspect what readers will make of this largely depends on how much they care, or feel made to care, about this rather select portion of humanity. As for me, I'm pretty much on the fence.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Canongate for an arc
May 18, 2023
this book was so bad i want to give it a zero but i can’t so i give it a one. i have never been so prepared to write a scathing review until i read this book. this book is a sally rooney wannabe dystopian novel that feels outdated despite relying so heavily on social media. the main character is so insufferable that while reading i wished that the crack in the sky would explode to put me out of my misery of being in her head. each chapter feels so long and dragged out that at one point i thought this was one of those books that doesn’t even mark chapter numbers. this book somehow does not have a single bearable character and it’s plot drags on painfully. i recommend this book to anyone who wants an excuse to read a book so bad that you can then justify never reading a book again.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 17, 2022
Not everyone can be Ottessa Moshfegh and that is okay!
May 7, 2022
how can a book be neither plot nor character driven... i respect the intentions but would rather you do something simple sincerely than do something complex in a way that never crescends and stays coinciding exactly with the x axis (except i LOVED how ). the short sentences fitting into very neat structures, without exceptions, come across as so lazy... for a book that has a main character named grace how did this end up with none of it—where is the articulation! the ELEGANCE! the integration?? the artistic vision??! all of which is in a mad way also a disservice to the author because i like her regardless :/
March 29, 2023
I absolutely loved this book, and I know I’m in the minority here, but that’s ok.
I really love that our main character, Sophie, is so addicted and only feels connected to her life when she’s on social media or her phone in general that we only “hear” her voice in text messages - it’s a little off putting at first, but once you kind of get what Sophie is all about, it’s a really cool thing that the author employed here. So for all those IRL convos happening with Sophie involved, we never see her side of the convo, only her thoughts and the other person’s dialogue.
The two major themes in this book are climate change and the level of disconnect we all have, which in turn connect with the less-prominent themes of toxic masculinity, sibling rivalry, fat phobia, consent, friendship, financial worries, and more. I think everything was explored in-depth throughout the book, and it really speaks to our times and the state of the world.
Also one scene that will really stick with me was near the beginning- when the crack in the sky appears, Sophie is wanting to connect with the people around her and the scariness/ seriousness of the situation and the not knowing wtf is going on - but everyone is on their phone, taking a picture and posting onto their Instagram stories for the sake of posting, not even truly absorbing what’s going on. Really says a lot about society, right?
If you’re looking for a messy millennial woman story but with existential questioning that actually reflects the world we’re in right now, I really recommend this book. No, it won’t be for everyone, but if you’re one of those people who “get” this, it will speak volumes to you like it did for me.
I really love that our main character, Sophie, is so addicted and only feels connected to her life when she’s on social media or her phone in general that we only “hear” her voice in text messages - it’s a little off putting at first, but once you kind of get what Sophie is all about, it’s a really cool thing that the author employed here. So for all those IRL convos happening with Sophie involved, we never see her side of the convo, only her thoughts and the other person’s dialogue.
The two major themes in this book are climate change and the level of disconnect we all have, which in turn connect with the less-prominent themes of toxic masculinity, sibling rivalry, fat phobia, consent, friendship, financial worries, and more. I think everything was explored in-depth throughout the book, and it really speaks to our times and the state of the world.
Also one scene that will really stick with me was near the beginning- when the crack in the sky appears, Sophie is wanting to connect with the people around her and the scariness/ seriousness of the situation and the not knowing wtf is going on - but everyone is on their phone, taking a picture and posting onto their Instagram stories for the sake of posting, not even truly absorbing what’s going on. Really says a lot about society, right?
If you’re looking for a messy millennial woman story but with existential questioning that actually reflects the world we’re in right now, I really recommend this book. No, it won’t be for everyone, but if you’re one of those people who “get” this, it will speak volumes to you like it did for me.
April 19, 2022
This took me so long to get through because although it’s an interesting topic, the delivery dragged. The protagonist doesn’t talk, well she does but we never get to see what she says— only other people’s responses and her thoughts. The book is big social commentary on climate change, social media, and that post-grad awkwardness. Sure, it’ll make you want to delete social media but that’s it. I think it’s very creative but wasn’t really there with the execution. Excited to see what else this author does though.
July 30, 2022
If there was ever a book that made you want to switch off your phone, it’s this one. That feeling of constantly being online, being beholden to messaging apps and social media, is starkly felt throughout this book.
Admittedly I’m twenty years too old to enjoy this book as fully as one might (and I think the target audience will love it), but truly I found it grating, whiney and depressing.
Sophie has just finished college and is trying to figure out what comes next. Her friends have it all figured out, and so does her perfect twin sister Hannah. Meanwhile, Sophie is sort of dating two boys, Finn and Rory, fruitlessly searching for a job and spending all of her waking hours online doomscrolling. When a crack appears in the sky, illuminating it with a purple light, it only serves to enhance Sophie’s anxiety and existential angst. Nobody knows what has caused the crack, and nobody can stop talking about it, memeifying it until it’s just another thing to joke/worry about.
There are strong parallels here with Sally Rooney’s novels (Prasifka is Rooney’s sister in law), Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times and Nealon’s Snowflake. I can’t help but feel this style of book has been done to death.
There’s a bit of anti-British sentiment in places and I cringed reading it. It feels as though it was written by someone who has never left Ireland. Exciting Times featured this too.
The dialogue is strange in the book. We get everything everyone else says in quote marks, but Sophie’s dialogue never appears, merely her thoughts. It’s not always obvious when she has responded to something someone has said. It’s a stylistic quirk and one that didn’t really work for me. It interrupted the flow of conversation.
I found Sophie frustrating as a character. Ultimately, she’s sad, lonely, a bit pathetic, very depressed and needs a good kick up the arse which her friends duly give her eventually. There were several passages I highlighted where I just rolled my eyes - along the lines of, our parents had so many opportunities that we are now deprived of. Give me a break. I wanted to shake Sophie: go see the world, get your head out of your phone! 2.5/5 ⭐️
The book made me want to delete all social media and never read another Trinity/Dublin college life novel. The best one I’ve read this year is Holding Her Breath by Eimear Ryan.
*None of This Is Serious by Catherine Prasifka will be published next April 2022. I read an advance digital copy of the book courtesy of the publishers Canongate Books and Netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.
Admittedly I’m twenty years too old to enjoy this book as fully as one might (and I think the target audience will love it), but truly I found it grating, whiney and depressing.
Sophie has just finished college and is trying to figure out what comes next. Her friends have it all figured out, and so does her perfect twin sister Hannah. Meanwhile, Sophie is sort of dating two boys, Finn and Rory, fruitlessly searching for a job and spending all of her waking hours online doomscrolling. When a crack appears in the sky, illuminating it with a purple light, it only serves to enhance Sophie’s anxiety and existential angst. Nobody knows what has caused the crack, and nobody can stop talking about it, memeifying it until it’s just another thing to joke/worry about.
There are strong parallels here with Sally Rooney’s novels (Prasifka is Rooney’s sister in law), Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times and Nealon’s Snowflake. I can’t help but feel this style of book has been done to death.
There’s a bit of anti-British sentiment in places and I cringed reading it. It feels as though it was written by someone who has never left Ireland. Exciting Times featured this too.
The dialogue is strange in the book. We get everything everyone else says in quote marks, but Sophie’s dialogue never appears, merely her thoughts. It’s not always obvious when she has responded to something someone has said. It’s a stylistic quirk and one that didn’t really work for me. It interrupted the flow of conversation.
I found Sophie frustrating as a character. Ultimately, she’s sad, lonely, a bit pathetic, very depressed and needs a good kick up the arse which her friends duly give her eventually. There were several passages I highlighted where I just rolled my eyes - along the lines of, our parents had so many opportunities that we are now deprived of. Give me a break. I wanted to shake Sophie: go see the world, get your head out of your phone! 2.5/5 ⭐️
The book made me want to delete all social media and never read another Trinity/Dublin college life novel. The best one I’ve read this year is Holding Her Breath by Eimear Ryan.
*None of This Is Serious by Catherine Prasifka will be published next April 2022. I read an advance digital copy of the book courtesy of the publishers Canongate Books and Netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.
April 12, 2023
If I read this ten years ago maybe I would have liked it more as I wasn't really able to connect with the characters or plot.
I'm not sure if the crack in the sky added anything to the novel, although I would say it gave it a sort of surreal feeling.
I'm not sure if the crack in the sky added anything to the novel, although I would say it gave it a sort of surreal feeling.
August 16, 2022
Insufferable. Just insufferable.
March 22, 2022
2.5/5
I know the characters are supposed to be 22 year old college graduates but they read like a bunch of high schoolers to me.
I know the characters are supposed to be 22 year old college graduates but they read like a bunch of high schoolers to me.
August 24, 2022
God, this book was just so awful, pretentious and painfully boring. The protagonist was so “woke” it made me want to puke. We get it, this is a book about gen z, but we really don’t need the pages and pages of descriptions about drafting posts for twitter. And then pages and pages of contemplating DMs. And then even more twitter. Speaking of twitter, drink every time the platform was mentioned, and you’ll surely end up dead in a ditch or something. I don’t know what else to say, I hated the main character much more than she hated herself, and trust me, this is a pretty difficult task. The whole “crack” thing (it was funny the first time the word was used, but after a while… I’ve never liked the word but I don’t think I’ll ever use it again) was so pointless? I don’t understand why add a sci-fi element if it doesn’t introduce ANYTHING significant into the plot. Don’t read this book. Nothing will save you from Sophie’s selfishness.
May 10, 2022
I have been avoiding writing this review, simply because of how much I've been struggling to put into words my feelings regarding this book. I've been trying to make it coherent since I finished the book, but that was a harder task than I originally assumed it would be.
None of This is Serious is an interesting book, in terms of it being exactly what it said it will but also completely different than what I expected. I expected to find this very relatable and to enjoy it a lot more than ended up being the case. This book was compared to Sally Rooney by a lot of reviews, and I fairly recently read Conversations With Friends, so I was pretty excited for None of This is Serious.
The book opens with our main character Sophie, at a party with friends. It is definitely a slice-of-life story, just the cast of characters going about their everyday life. However, at this party the characters witness "a crack in the sky" appear, which is perhaps a trick of the light, pollution, or some sign of the rapture - the thing is, no one actually knows. Seeing that, everyone takes to social media, where countless comments, doubts, and memes appear and everyone just moves on. Everyone goes back to their regularly scheduled lives, Sophie is without success looking for a job, and having relationship issues, both romantic and overall. What is interesting about this book is that it combines the existential dread of being in your 20s, growing up, and having no clue what you're supposed to do, with a more urgent, but similarly futile existential dread caused by inevitable climate change and what is perceived as a sign of impending doom.
First, I will say that everything that happens we witness through the protagonist, Sophie's point of view. This is where a clear comparison with Sally Rooney is being made – while Rooney just doesn't use quotation marks, here they are used, but not when Sophie speaks. I found this slightly disorienting and confusing as most of the time I assumed that something was Sophie's inner monologue, and then a character would directly respond to that. To no quotation marks whatsoever I adapted very quickly, but the way it was done here was something I did not get used to by the end – but that might just be my issue that no one else will experience.
Sophie is an interesting main character to follow. She is someone I thought I would relate to – she is in her early 20s, she spends a lot of her time online, struggles with her body image, with her family, theirs and overall societal expectations etc. A lot of those topics are very relevant to me, and yet reading this I wanted nothing but for this book to end sooner. Now, I don't generally think characters need to be "likeable" for me to enjoy them, but there was just something about Sophie that truly stopped me from understanding her as a character and to enjoy reading from her perspective. I think it was maybe because nothing she thinks feels like it's her own. And I don't mean that in a way that she is just like everyone else – I wouldn't mind that in the slightest. This is more the fact that reading this you just witness her react to things. We are supposedly in her head, reading from her perspective, but it feels like if there was nothing to react to, she would just not think or say anything. Maybe that is the point, the book deals a lot with how the social media influences us all, and maybe this is some commentary on that, but if it is it probably went over my head, as this just did not make for an enjoyable reading experience. Reading from her perspective often felt more frustrating than anything else. She does often feel younger than she is, even straight-up childish at times. In some aspects this book feels more like it should be ya rather than new adult/adult contemporary. She most of the time seems like a passive observer in her own life, and not like someone willing and capable to make decisions and change things.
The rest of the characters are less fleshed out, not in a badly written way, but in a way that most of this story is about Sophie. The rest of them are a strange bunch, and besides her friend, whom I also disliked at times, the rest just seem like she would really be better off without them. During the novel, we watch her form two romantic relationships, with Finn – whom she's liked since forever, and Rory – a friend of a friend, whom she just met. Now, from my perspective, Finn seems like a pretty awful friend and an even worse dating option, while at the beginning Rory seems like the obvious choice she avoids making. I will say that for about half of the book, when one of them was on page I kept thinking it's the other one – not because they're similar, they're not, but simply because Sophie's apathetic way of narrating really made no difference in whom she was interacting with, or talking about. Now, my mixing them up aside, this is the aspect of the book I, for the most part, enjoyed. While I haven't enjoyed it as much in the first half of the book, the second half of the book really has a good point to make regarding relationships, and what you think you want and what you think you need. This is an excellent discussion point because it really brings to light that things are not always how they seem, and how quickly everything can change in an unpredictable manner, including your needs and wants. I liked the realistic portrayal of how ruthless the world can be in some situations even when you've done nothing to deserve it (and you yourself have been dealt a bad hand actually). I am being deliberately vague, so as to not include spoilers, but be aware that there are discussions of consent and one scene where consent is very questionable at best.
As I mentioned, most side characters are seen in passing, and none of them are particularly good or likable. I enjoy my fair share of irredeemable, bad characters but those types of characters still have something about them that draws you in, while these characters simply had nothing. I usually avoid saying this, but I found all of the characters (Sophie included) simply too annoying. Sophie's family also provided much frustration for me, as they were terrible to her (and in general), but packaged with a nice bow. They invalidated her (for once perfectly valid) feelings towards her sister, and in general acted like she was less than her twin. There was no real resolution to any conflict that arose in the book (or no true resolution anyways), and that also added to me disliking this book, as it seemed to tell the reader that every thing, even the little ones are like pointless to try and solve. I do know that this is not the point, and I do absolutely understand what this book was trying to achieve, but that is not what I feel it ended up doing. I feel like there was just too much of trying to be profound by overly simplifying it, but I simply don't feel like the book achieved its point.
Especially regarding that rift in the sky – that was slightly perplexing to me, which I do suppose is the point. It is definitely a response to covid (and worsening climate situation I suppose), which brought out mass apathy and misdirected concern or otherwise commentary on it, but I truly didn't get what this book was trying to achieve. There was nothing that really made me see a new side of all of that, or look at it through a different lens – it was more along the lines of yes, social media bad, climate change real, people not reacting properly, but we all know this. Maybe the simplicity of it was the point, maybe it was supposed to tell us we are all too comfortable with everything happening, but I didn't feel that while reading. It simply felt like it was trying so hard to be profound, but falling just a bit short of it every time.
All in all, this book really wasn't for me. That being said, I don't think it is a bad book, and I don't think you shouldn't read it if you're interested. I really did like the idea of it, and I still think it is a good concept to explore – so maybe you will find it fits your taste better than it did mine!
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
None of This is Serious is an interesting book, in terms of it being exactly what it said it will but also completely different than what I expected. I expected to find this very relatable and to enjoy it a lot more than ended up being the case. This book was compared to Sally Rooney by a lot of reviews, and I fairly recently read Conversations With Friends, so I was pretty excited for None of This is Serious.
The book opens with our main character Sophie, at a party with friends. It is definitely a slice-of-life story, just the cast of characters going about their everyday life. However, at this party the characters witness "a crack in the sky" appear, which is perhaps a trick of the light, pollution, or some sign of the rapture - the thing is, no one actually knows. Seeing that, everyone takes to social media, where countless comments, doubts, and memes appear and everyone just moves on. Everyone goes back to their regularly scheduled lives, Sophie is without success looking for a job, and having relationship issues, both romantic and overall. What is interesting about this book is that it combines the existential dread of being in your 20s, growing up, and having no clue what you're supposed to do, with a more urgent, but similarly futile existential dread caused by inevitable climate change and what is perceived as a sign of impending doom.
First, I will say that everything that happens we witness through the protagonist, Sophie's point of view. This is where a clear comparison with Sally Rooney is being made – while Rooney just doesn't use quotation marks, here they are used, but not when Sophie speaks. I found this slightly disorienting and confusing as most of the time I assumed that something was Sophie's inner monologue, and then a character would directly respond to that. To no quotation marks whatsoever I adapted very quickly, but the way it was done here was something I did not get used to by the end – but that might just be my issue that no one else will experience.
Sophie is an interesting main character to follow. She is someone I thought I would relate to – she is in her early 20s, she spends a lot of her time online, struggles with her body image, with her family, theirs and overall societal expectations etc. A lot of those topics are very relevant to me, and yet reading this I wanted nothing but for this book to end sooner. Now, I don't generally think characters need to be "likeable" for me to enjoy them, but there was just something about Sophie that truly stopped me from understanding her as a character and to enjoy reading from her perspective. I think it was maybe because nothing she thinks feels like it's her own. And I don't mean that in a way that she is just like everyone else – I wouldn't mind that in the slightest. This is more the fact that reading this you just witness her react to things. We are supposedly in her head, reading from her perspective, but it feels like if there was nothing to react to, she would just not think or say anything. Maybe that is the point, the book deals a lot with how the social media influences us all, and maybe this is some commentary on that, but if it is it probably went over my head, as this just did not make for an enjoyable reading experience. Reading from her perspective often felt more frustrating than anything else. She does often feel younger than she is, even straight-up childish at times. In some aspects this book feels more like it should be ya rather than new adult/adult contemporary. She most of the time seems like a passive observer in her own life, and not like someone willing and capable to make decisions and change things.
The rest of the characters are less fleshed out, not in a badly written way, but in a way that most of this story is about Sophie. The rest of them are a strange bunch, and besides her friend, whom I also disliked at times, the rest just seem like she would really be better off without them. During the novel, we watch her form two romantic relationships, with Finn – whom she's liked since forever, and Rory – a friend of a friend, whom she just met. Now, from my perspective, Finn seems like a pretty awful friend and an even worse dating option, while at the beginning Rory seems like the obvious choice she avoids making. I will say that for about half of the book, when one of them was on page I kept thinking it's the other one – not because they're similar, they're not, but simply because Sophie's apathetic way of narrating really made no difference in whom she was interacting with, or talking about. Now, my mixing them up aside, this is the aspect of the book I, for the most part, enjoyed. While I haven't enjoyed it as much in the first half of the book, the second half of the book really has a good point to make regarding relationships, and what you think you want and what you think you need. This is an excellent discussion point because it really brings to light that things are not always how they seem, and how quickly everything can change in an unpredictable manner, including your needs and wants. I liked the realistic portrayal of how ruthless the world can be in some situations even when you've done nothing to deserve it (and you yourself have been dealt a bad hand actually). I am being deliberately vague, so as to not include spoilers, but be aware that there are discussions of consent and one scene where consent is very questionable at best.
As I mentioned, most side characters are seen in passing, and none of them are particularly good or likable. I enjoy my fair share of irredeemable, bad characters but those types of characters still have something about them that draws you in, while these characters simply had nothing. I usually avoid saying this, but I found all of the characters (Sophie included) simply too annoying. Sophie's family also provided much frustration for me, as they were terrible to her (and in general), but packaged with a nice bow. They invalidated her (for once perfectly valid) feelings towards her sister, and in general acted like she was less than her twin. There was no real resolution to any conflict that arose in the book (or no true resolution anyways), and that also added to me disliking this book, as it seemed to tell the reader that every thing, even the little ones are like pointless to try and solve. I do know that this is not the point, and I do absolutely understand what this book was trying to achieve, but that is not what I feel it ended up doing. I feel like there was just too much of trying to be profound by overly simplifying it, but I simply don't feel like the book achieved its point.
Especially regarding that rift in the sky – that was slightly perplexing to me, which I do suppose is the point. It is definitely a response to covid (and worsening climate situation I suppose), which brought out mass apathy and misdirected concern or otherwise commentary on it, but I truly didn't get what this book was trying to achieve. There was nothing that really made me see a new side of all of that, or look at it through a different lens – it was more along the lines of yes, social media bad, climate change real, people not reacting properly, but we all know this. Maybe the simplicity of it was the point, maybe it was supposed to tell us we are all too comfortable with everything happening, but I didn't feel that while reading. It simply felt like it was trying so hard to be profound, but falling just a bit short of it every time.
All in all, this book really wasn't for me. That being said, I don't think it is a bad book, and I don't think you shouldn't read it if you're interested. I really did like the idea of it, and I still think it is a good concept to explore – so maybe you will find it fits your taste better than it did mine!
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
November 24, 2021
If you love anything written by Sally Rooney, you will eat this one up!
Honestly, this had a strong 70 pages but then after it got so boring. Lack of conversation is NOT a plot driver and I am so over it. BUT in true Sally Rooney style, that is exactly what this book does and I am sure it will have all the hype.
Honestly, this missed the mark.
Honestly, this had a strong 70 pages but then after it got so boring. Lack of conversation is NOT a plot driver and I am so over it. BUT in true Sally Rooney style, that is exactly what this book does and I am sure it will have all the hype.
Honestly, this missed the mark.
August 22, 2022
Hoped it was going somewhere but it actually didn’t
April 5, 2022
I knew the chances of me enjoying this book were very slim I was right. It is written in the same manner of Sally Rooneys novels be warned.
I feel this book is a very much of that type where nothing really happens, there is a load of boring conversations and it is depressing just like Rooneys work but what made this stand out slightly and earned its one star , was that it was a bit more cleaver in how it explored the wider conservation around young woman's place in society today, the crack in the sky for me seems to a metaphor for the crack inside of Sophie thus it runs parallel thought out the book I liked this. That is all I liked.
The issue of social media in our society was explored, Sophie lived online and it clearly has an impact on her over all mental health, this did make made me reflect on my social media usage. The way in which Sophie struggles to balance her competing lives, that of her ‘real’ life and the one that she presents online for me highlights what Sophie’s main issue is she believes she is living the online life and then is left disappointed when the reality hits, this was interesting but not ground breaking.
Much like Rooneys work I have to question does anyone actually talk like that? The conversations are long, boring and weary. There is no characterisation at all. All you hear is a bunch of post grads moaning and, being not very to each other this makes it very hard to relate, like or even just feel empathy for these characters, footnote Grace is a horror.
. Also I feel like this type of book featuring self pitying, twentysomething Irish Marxists characters chatting about how rubbish they have it with no plot has been done to death. I find it very annoying when they are moaning about not being able to buy a flat after university whist they are guzzling wine wearing expensive clothes in their parents mansion then in the next breath they are away on fancy holidays. It is a bit poor little privileged white me. I am also so sick of this portray of young women, whiney, doing anything get a man and being insecure babies, this does young women a serious injustice. These books make me laugh in the sense that the characters think they are super self aware and woke but in fact they are deluded and up their own bums, also I find within the wokeness there is lot of racism, classism and misogyny so not very woke at all.
This book is a repeat of Sally Rooney and the likes. It is not for me at all, I do suspects it will be over hyped and folk will buy into it. Folk who feel there are also hard done by despite being in a better position than many will lap this up.
I hope there is not a tv adaption, I could take the tv version of Normal People ,even know the book was awful, for Paul Mescal in the short shorts and the fact we were all experiencing our own crack in the sky moment at the time but this would send me to sleep or make me smash my tv with annoyance.
Thanks for the ARC but you can keep it
I feel this book is a very much of that type where nothing really happens, there is a load of boring conversations and it is depressing just like Rooneys work but what made this stand out slightly and earned its one star , was that it was a bit more cleaver in how it explored the wider conservation around young woman's place in society today, the crack in the sky for me seems to a metaphor for the crack inside of Sophie thus it runs parallel thought out the book I liked this. That is all I liked.
The issue of social media in our society was explored, Sophie lived online and it clearly has an impact on her over all mental health, this did make made me reflect on my social media usage. The way in which Sophie struggles to balance her competing lives, that of her ‘real’ life and the one that she presents online for me highlights what Sophie’s main issue is she believes she is living the online life and then is left disappointed when the reality hits, this was interesting but not ground breaking.
Much like Rooneys work I have to question does anyone actually talk like that? The conversations are long, boring and weary. There is no characterisation at all. All you hear is a bunch of post grads moaning and, being not very to each other this makes it very hard to relate, like or even just feel empathy for these characters, footnote Grace is a horror.
. Also I feel like this type of book featuring self pitying, twentysomething Irish Marxists characters chatting about how rubbish they have it with no plot has been done to death. I find it very annoying when they are moaning about not being able to buy a flat after university whist they are guzzling wine wearing expensive clothes in their parents mansion then in the next breath they are away on fancy holidays. It is a bit poor little privileged white me. I am also so sick of this portray of young women, whiney, doing anything get a man and being insecure babies, this does young women a serious injustice. These books make me laugh in the sense that the characters think they are super self aware and woke but in fact they are deluded and up their own bums, also I find within the wokeness there is lot of racism, classism and misogyny so not very woke at all.
This book is a repeat of Sally Rooney and the likes. It is not for me at all, I do suspects it will be over hyped and folk will buy into it. Folk who feel there are also hard done by despite being in a better position than many will lap this up.
I hope there is not a tv adaption, I could take the tv version of Normal People ,even know the book was awful, for Paul Mescal in the short shorts and the fact we were all experiencing our own crack in the sky moment at the time but this would send me to sleep or make me smash my tv with annoyance.
Thanks for the ARC but you can keep it
Want to read
September 17, 2024Sally Rooney's sister-in-law wrote a book?
February 12, 2025
The literary equivalent of reading one boring long twitter feed in 2020. Very online, very boring, very tryhard. The characters are insufferable, the story thin, the writing lacklustre.
I found this book in a bookshop with a "from Ireland & just like Sally Rooney" tag on it and thought "I doubt it, but why not". The author is, indeed, from Ireland. And she is "like" Sally Rooney in the sense that they are sisters in law.
I found this book in a bookshop with a "from Ireland & just like Sally Rooney" tag on it and thought "I doubt it, but why not". The author is, indeed, from Ireland. And she is "like" Sally Rooney in the sense that they are sisters in law.
January 17, 2025
yeah it really wasn't
March 28, 2023
3.5 stars
22-year-old Sophie has no idea what she's going to do next. She's graduated college and isn't having much luck with her job and living with her parents with no hope of ever moving out and affording rent let alone buying her own home in the future. When a large crack appears in the sky, Sophie's social media obsession becomes even worse as she juggles boys, friendships and a contentious relationship with her twin sister - and not to mention the ever looming presence of the crack and what it means for humanity.
This book is an interesting one. I feel like I loved it for all the different things it and the characters had to say about the world as it is right now - especially for young Irish people, but I can also see where in parts it was overdone and pretentious and how others wouldn't have gotten on with the book. I think it's very 'of the now' book - the social media obsession, the problems young people are facing as they leave college and can't get jobs, can't afford rent and already stress over ever owning a house, emigration and then all the normal things of body image, romance problems and friendships changing and evolving.
Sophie as a character is fairly complex. She is probably one of the most self-absorbed yet at the same time incredibly insecure characters I've ever followed and while that should bring on a certain amount of empathy, there were times I just didn't like Sophie and found her a little bit of w whingebag and also not a particularly good friend to Grace (MVP of this book in my opinion) and her other friend Dan who is struggling with loneliness after emigrating.
I think Sophie's relationship with social media is obviously one of the biggest things in the book, as well as the biggest relationship in the book as well as Sophie obsessively finds herself down rabbit holes on Twitter, listening to podcasts deep into the night and exploring conspiracy theories about the crack. People Sophie's age have grown up surrounded by social media and it's become like their right hand and without it they feel lost and it's often what they use to help them understand the world. I think with time and age, distance from social media becomes easier as real life takes over - relationships, jobs, responsibility but Sophie is not there yet and effectively, without a job, has all the time on the world to spend on her phone.
I actually really liked the presence of the crack in the sky and it's ever presence in the book, always in the background. In a way I wondered if it was a stand in for something like the pandemic, and if not, definitely inspired by it - and I think it was a brilliant way to show that when unexplainable, scary things happen, life still more or less goes on as normal. Worldwide pandemic? Life stopped for a while but a majority of everyday normal things happened and now the world is more or less back to the way it was. Ukrainian War? Everyone is still doing their day-to-day activities albeit with a heavier cost of living situation but parties, romance, school and life is still happening every day.
I think this book is clever, and while I would have liked maybe a couple less conversations about capitalism (listen you talk about capitalism, you'll get compared to Sally Rooney and that's that), I think the author understand the mind of a twenty-something very well and all the fears and insecurities people can have when they're young and life still feels very unknown and scary.
22-year-old Sophie has no idea what she's going to do next. She's graduated college and isn't having much luck with her job and living with her parents with no hope of ever moving out and affording rent let alone buying her own home in the future. When a large crack appears in the sky, Sophie's social media obsession becomes even worse as she juggles boys, friendships and a contentious relationship with her twin sister - and not to mention the ever looming presence of the crack and what it means for humanity.
This book is an interesting one. I feel like I loved it for all the different things it and the characters had to say about the world as it is right now - especially for young Irish people, but I can also see where in parts it was overdone and pretentious and how others wouldn't have gotten on with the book. I think it's very 'of the now' book - the social media obsession, the problems young people are facing as they leave college and can't get jobs, can't afford rent and already stress over ever owning a house, emigration and then all the normal things of body image, romance problems and friendships changing and evolving.
Sophie as a character is fairly complex. She is probably one of the most self-absorbed yet at the same time incredibly insecure characters I've ever followed and while that should bring on a certain amount of empathy, there were times I just didn't like Sophie and found her a little bit of w whingebag and also not a particularly good friend to Grace (MVP of this book in my opinion) and her other friend Dan who is struggling with loneliness after emigrating.
I think Sophie's relationship with social media is obviously one of the biggest things in the book, as well as the biggest relationship in the book as well as Sophie obsessively finds herself down rabbit holes on Twitter, listening to podcasts deep into the night and exploring conspiracy theories about the crack. People Sophie's age have grown up surrounded by social media and it's become like their right hand and without it they feel lost and it's often what they use to help them understand the world. I think with time and age, distance from social media becomes easier as real life takes over - relationships, jobs, responsibility but Sophie is not there yet and effectively, without a job, has all the time on the world to spend on her phone.
I actually really liked the presence of the crack in the sky and it's ever presence in the book, always in the background. In a way I wondered if it was a stand in for something like the pandemic, and if not, definitely inspired by it - and I think it was a brilliant way to show that when unexplainable, scary things happen, life still more or less goes on as normal. Worldwide pandemic? Life stopped for a while but a majority of everyday normal things happened and now the world is more or less back to the way it was. Ukrainian War? Everyone is still doing their day-to-day activities albeit with a heavier cost of living situation but parties, romance, school and life is still happening every day.
I think this book is clever, and while I would have liked maybe a couple less conversations about capitalism (listen you talk about capitalism, you'll get compared to Sally Rooney and that's that), I think the author understand the mind of a twenty-something very well and all the fears and insecurities people can have when they're young and life still feels very unknown and scary.
August 17, 2023
Had to sleep on rating this....I wanted to like it SO BADLY, but this is a 1 star read for me - if that.
Usually I think it's a little unfair to compare a debut novel to established authors - however, this is so blatantly (I want to say copying but will use playing off of) Sally Rooney that there really is no way around it.
Sophie felt so flat to me, there was absolutely nothing likeable about her - which, yes, may be the point, but goddamn!! You're meant to root and feel for her but in the end you're left feeling like everyone is right and she is the problem in her life - there is no resolution to ANYTHING in this whole book, not one thing changes from the first to the last page. Sophie does seem to find a resolution of some kind (still completely in the dark about what exactly inspired this/what that resolution is meant to be), but it's a tell not show. If anything, that should have been the midpoint of the story, not the conclusion.
None of the other characters get any development, they all stay static and react to Sophie's antics the same every time she starts them back up again. Hannah might have been interesting - never really got a chance to figure her out. Same with Grace, Lucy, Dan, even Finn and Rory...any of them might have been switched for any of the other in terms of how they relate (or not) to Sophie.
Honestly, if I was any of Sophie's "friends" (using that term loosely because they don't really act like friends to her and she doesn't seem to like any of them either) I would also leave her out of group outings.
Sophie must be the most unlikeable main character I have ever encountered. Again!!! I understand that that is kind of the point, but.....no. Just no. Get a new schtick. Not to mention that the way she interacts with the internet is completely out of touch (it's so hard to believe the author is only three years older than me, reading this I questioned if maybe some middle-aged lector ordered an overhaul to fit things to their perception of how 'youngsters use the internets').
I do have to mention that I noticed Sophie's voicelessness - her dialogue is never written out, only paraphrased, while everyone else gets theirs put in quotation marks. I don't think this adds much, or tells me anything about Sophie that we don't get told over and over and over again in her internal monologue anyway, but I just wanted to say I saw it, didn't like it much.
Oh, and then there's the whole clumsy pandemic metaphor with the crack?? What was that about? If you are going to bring that up do SOMETHING with it? Literally, do anything with it? If that was left out, not one thing in the entire book would need to be changed save replacing "crack" in conversation with "climate change" or "rising right wing voices".
Again - this was so disappointing to me because I had such high hopes for it. The best I can say about it is that at least it (as my first read of 2023) didn't put me in a complete reading slump.
Usually I think it's a little unfair to compare a debut novel to established authors - however, this is so blatantly (I want to say copying but will use playing off of) Sally Rooney that there really is no way around it.
Sophie felt so flat to me, there was absolutely nothing likeable about her - which, yes, may be the point, but goddamn!! You're meant to root and feel for her but in the end you're left feeling like everyone is right and she is the problem in her life - there is no resolution to ANYTHING in this whole book, not one thing changes from the first to the last page. Sophie does seem to find a resolution of some kind (still completely in the dark about what exactly inspired this/what that resolution is meant to be), but it's a tell not show. If anything, that should have been the midpoint of the story, not the conclusion.
None of the other characters get any development, they all stay static and react to Sophie's antics the same every time she starts them back up again. Hannah might have been interesting - never really got a chance to figure her out. Same with Grace, Lucy, Dan, even Finn and Rory...any of them might have been switched for any of the other in terms of how they relate (or not) to Sophie.
Honestly, if I was any of Sophie's "friends" (using that term loosely because they don't really act like friends to her and she doesn't seem to like any of them either) I would also leave her out of group outings.
Sophie must be the most unlikeable main character I have ever encountered. Again!!! I understand that that is kind of the point, but.....no. Just no. Get a new schtick. Not to mention that the way she interacts with the internet is completely out of touch (it's so hard to believe the author is only three years older than me, reading this I questioned if maybe some middle-aged lector ordered an overhaul to fit things to their perception of how 'youngsters use the internets').
I do have to mention that I noticed Sophie's voicelessness - her dialogue is never written out, only paraphrased, while everyone else gets theirs put in quotation marks. I don't think this adds much, or tells me anything about Sophie that we don't get told over and over and over again in her internal monologue anyway, but I just wanted to say I saw it, didn't like it much.
Oh, and then there's the whole clumsy pandemic metaphor with the crack?? What was that about? If you are going to bring that up do SOMETHING with it? Literally, do anything with it? If that was left out, not one thing in the entire book would need to be changed save replacing "crack" in conversation with "climate change" or "rising right wing voices".
Again - this was so disappointing to me because I had such high hopes for it. The best I can say about it is that at least it (as my first read of 2023) didn't put me in a complete reading slump.
April 2, 2022
Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was an amazing story about Sophie and what it feels like to be in your early twenties. I binge read the book in a single day and I have a list of things that I enjoyed about it:
- a slice of life story that I didn't know I needed
- social media and internet culture was on point
- that feeling of being lost in our early twenties, just figuring out life
- friendship is important
- messy friend groups and relationships in general
- also depicted a toxic family in a perfect way
- climate change was a major part of the story and very relevant
- perfectly captures how lonely and vulnerable you feel in your early twenties
- one very specific thing about how you feel that you're not the important one in your friend group or that you don't belong here
I didn't know that "sad woman in her twenties" was a book category in itself and now I would have to look for more books with these vibes
tw: fat shaming, body dysmorphia, sexual assault, cyber bullying
This was an amazing story about Sophie and what it feels like to be in your early twenties. I binge read the book in a single day and I have a list of things that I enjoyed about it:
- a slice of life story that I didn't know I needed
- social media and internet culture was on point
- that feeling of being lost in our early twenties, just figuring out life
- friendship is important
- messy friend groups and relationships in general
- also depicted a toxic family in a perfect way
- climate change was a major part of the story and very relevant
- perfectly captures how lonely and vulnerable you feel in your early twenties
- one very specific thing about how you feel that you're not the important one in your friend group or that you don't belong here
I didn't know that "sad woman in her twenties" was a book category in itself and now I would have to look for more books with these vibes
tw: fat shaming, body dysmorphia, sexual assault, cyber bullying
July 10, 2025
Wat een verspilling van mijn TIJD!!!! Er is veel mis met dit boek. De schrijfstijl is echt niet goed. Hoe kun je zó vaak schrijven "i refreshed my social media"? Soms worden er dan ineens zinnen ingegooid die zogezegd heel poëtisch moeten overkomen, maar die werkelijk waar nergens op slaan. Iemand blokkeren op Twitter voelt NIET hetzelfde als je arm verliezen (niet dat ik dat heb meegemaakt maar ik durf dat wel met vrij veel zekerheid te zeggen).
Letterlijk alle personages zijn onuitstaanbaar; van het hoofdpersonage, tot haar beste vriendin en zelfs haar ouders. En hoewel de bijpersonages echt stuk voor stuk afschuwelijke mensen zijn, spande de hoofdpersoon wel de kroon. Het was echt zwaar vermoeiend om te lezen hoe moeilijk ze het had met alle sociale media. Maar eigenlijk ook zonder sociale media (first world problem hoor, als je met je vriendengroep van tien mensen naar een chic strandhuis gaat maar ER IS GEEN BEREIK!!!??).
Het boek doet een poging om verschillende maatschappelijke problemen aan te kaarten maar faalt hier enorm in. De meest cliché standpunten en voorbeelden worden aangehaald, maar zonder de diepte in te gaan.
En dan nog dat gat in de lucht? Wat was dat? Waarom moest dit boek over sociale media en eenzaamheid/confuus gevoelens in je 20s per se gepaard gaan met een soort dystopisch en apocalyptisch element? Wat metaforisch of symbolisch had moeten zijn, was voor mij een subplot dat totaal niet logisch was. Het gat werd op de meest willekeurige momenten ineens benoemd en dan werd daar weer iets filosofisch over gezegd. Voor mij leidde dit af en toe tot verwarring over de volgorde van het verhaal. Er waren té veel onderwerpen die té willekeurig door elkaar liepen.
Zo en nu heb ik mijn hart gelucht. Catherine, als je dit leest dan echt sorry voor m'n slechte review!!
Letterlijk alle personages zijn onuitstaanbaar; van het hoofdpersonage, tot haar beste vriendin en zelfs haar ouders. En hoewel de bijpersonages echt stuk voor stuk afschuwelijke mensen zijn, spande de hoofdpersoon wel de kroon. Het was echt zwaar vermoeiend om te lezen hoe moeilijk ze het had met alle sociale media. Maar eigenlijk ook zonder sociale media (first world problem hoor, als je met je vriendengroep van tien mensen naar een chic strandhuis gaat maar ER IS GEEN BEREIK!!!??).
Het boek doet een poging om verschillende maatschappelijke problemen aan te kaarten maar faalt hier enorm in. De meest cliché standpunten en voorbeelden worden aangehaald, maar zonder de diepte in te gaan.
En dan nog dat gat in de lucht? Wat was dat? Waarom moest dit boek over sociale media en eenzaamheid/confuus gevoelens in je 20s per se gepaard gaan met een soort dystopisch en apocalyptisch element? Wat metaforisch of symbolisch had moeten zijn, was voor mij een subplot dat totaal niet logisch was. Het gat werd op de meest willekeurige momenten ineens benoemd en dan werd daar weer iets filosofisch over gezegd. Voor mij leidde dit af en toe tot verwarring over de volgorde van het verhaal. Er waren té veel onderwerpen die té willekeurig door elkaar liepen.
Zo en nu heb ik mijn hart gelucht. Catherine, als je dit leest dan echt sorry voor m'n slechte review!!
January 10, 2023
none of this is serious is a book about a chronically online young woman in her twenties who can't find a job in her field, spends most of her free time doomscrolling, has meandering thoughts about the State of society yet no means to do anything except exist in a world where there has been a great upheaval and yet everything is exactly, stubbornly, insistently, absurdly, the same.
aka: she just like me fr.
i did pick this up because a youtuber i was watching was talking about how sophie, our protagonist, is too chronically online and insufferably depressed. there's got to be something meta about that.
this is one of those books that is clearly a pandemic book without being a pandemic book, meeting Hot Sad Girl (White/Cis/Heterosexual) archetype, with the surrealist conceit of a big crack opening up in the sky, which i think is a metaphor for a phone screen. also, the protagonist doesn't speak directly, which gives the book simultaneously a more stream of consciousness vibe but also creates the impression of sophie having no voice irl - we only see her words through text. i think a lot of people in the millenial/gen z age range -- oh, heck, me included -- feel more themselves online.
this book really captures a lot of the post-pandemic isolation and loneliness people are feeling in their twenties, especially if you've graduated university in this time period and have to deal with this economy and job hunting and changes in friendship. i think that this book had a lot to say, and i enjoyed it for the most part, but eventually i feel like a lot of its more impactful points were lost under sophie dealing with men (or maybe that's just not a part i can relate to, lol).
aka: she just like me fr.
i did pick this up because a youtuber i was watching was talking about how sophie, our protagonist, is too chronically online and insufferably depressed. there's got to be something meta about that.
this is one of those books that is clearly a pandemic book without being a pandemic book, meeting Hot Sad Girl (White/Cis/Heterosexual) archetype, with the surrealist conceit of a big crack opening up in the sky, which i think is a metaphor for a phone screen. also, the protagonist doesn't speak directly, which gives the book simultaneously a more stream of consciousness vibe but also creates the impression of sophie having no voice irl - we only see her words through text. i think a lot of people in the millenial/gen z age range -- oh, heck, me included -- feel more themselves online.
this book really captures a lot of the post-pandemic isolation and loneliness people are feeling in their twenties, especially if you've graduated university in this time period and have to deal with this economy and job hunting and changes in friendship. i think that this book had a lot to say, and i enjoyed it for the most part, but eventually i feel like a lot of its more impactful points were lost under sophie dealing with men (or maybe that's just not a part i can relate to, lol).
April 26, 2023
This is almost like a John Green book, but for those in their 20’s a 2023 world.
A lot of hard relating went on in this, from navigating friendships, dating (or not), to affording a house and getting well paid jobs. I also found it really interesting that Prasifka highlighted how a lot of our generation turn to social media and drink as a form of escapism as well as that some find it easier to navigate the online world than the real one.
This was all wrapped up with a bit of dystopia too, which stopped this from becoming too hard hitting to read, allowing for a bit of escapism (but I could honestly imagine this happening in our real world too).
A lot of hard relating went on in this, from navigating friendships, dating (or not), to affording a house and getting well paid jobs. I also found it really interesting that Prasifka highlighted how a lot of our generation turn to social media and drink as a form of escapism as well as that some find it easier to navigate the online world than the real one.
This was all wrapped up with a bit of dystopia too, which stopped this from becoming too hard hitting to read, allowing for a bit of escapism (but I could honestly imagine this happening in our real world too).
April 3, 2022
This was a book that I was really excited to read and so when I received a copy through NetGalley (thank you kindly to NetGalley and Canongate Books for this ARC), I was thrilled. However, I unfortunately found this to be quite a disappointing read.
This book is about two main things: firstly, the ability of humans to take a crisis (in this case a purple crack that appears in the sky but this could also be the pandemic or the climate crisis) and steadily integrate it into our lives as a new normal. This means memes, conspiracy theories, news outlets downplaying the crisis, and doom scrolling. Secondly, this book is about finishing university in your early twenties and facing an existential crisis as you enter unemployment and uncertainty and stare into the void of a terrible job/housing market (in this case, in Dublin). This is the harsh and unsettling reality swirling around the main character, Sophie.
This book does a great depiction of our relationship as a society with social media and our phones, especially young folk. The author clearly knows the internet well and understands how young adults talk, with great quotes like -
“The more I scroll and read, the more my anxiety grows, but I can’t stop. […] It isn’t dopamine hitting my brain, but it’s addictive all the same. Scrolling helps me to shut out my gnawing thoughts. It keeps alive the possibility that there might be an answer on the next thread.”
“I’m not convinced that people chat any more; they just watch the clock tick down until they can go to sleep again.”
There’s great scenes where Sophie doesn’t actually reply to her friends, just posting vague tweets she hopes they will reply to, or she wakes up at 6am and realises she hasn’t seen this side of the sunrise in ages, before picking up her phone and scrolling Twitter. The book also does a clever and nuanced portrayal of deep and trauma related insecurity about appearance and weight, a specific type of feminist man who ‘uses the language of social justice to manipulate women into sleeping with him’, and how an awful event that happens to you in real life is twisted away from you online until you’re the villain and the perpetrator is the victim. This is what the novel does really well.
Unfortunately, there are also a number of flaws with this book. A main theme in this book is about how Sophie falls into a depression and distances herself from her friends, convinced they all hate her. The book clearly wants you to think this is just due to Sophie’s issues and not because of her friends as people. However this fails to be believable because all of Sophie’s friends are objectively horrible people. Her best friend Grace is relentlessly nasty to her, only being nice when it seems to fit her idea that Sophie is a bit pathetic. Her other friend Steph tells Sophie that she does not want to cut off someone who has done something awful to Sophie because it’s too awkward. Lucy and Sophie could barely be described as friends, despite apparently having spent four years together at uni before the story started. Dan seems to like Sophie but is also off screen for most of the book, having moved to London. Finn is manipulative, although to be fair this does seem to be deliberate, and the less said about Rory the better. It just seems that Sophie would be happier without any of these people, so I struggle to believe that her mental health would be improved by slipping back into her friendship under the guise of being the pathetic friend who always needs them.
Another issue with the book is that it is relentlessly depressing and repetitive. I’ve read a few books where the main character falls into a depression, but the books themselves are not depressing. Sophie believes all of her friends hate her and talk about her, which seems to be true. Sophie struggles to get a job, and the job market is shit. The world seems to be ending, but if so it’s kind of slowly grinding to a halt while the media makes jokes. Sophie’s family are unkind to her and enable her twin sister to display psychotic behaviour towards her. Horrible things happen to Sophie through no fault of her own and then her horrible friends slowly abandon her. And then that’s basically it? There’s a pointlessness to this book which, although it may be the point, is still sort of pointless. Sophie stands up for herself at one point, which is great, but the writing distances you so much from the characters through never really letting you see exactly what Sophie is saying that you can’t really feel anything for her. I can see what the author was trying to do, but I think that it just wasn’t quite there.
A creative and timely book that just wasn’t quite executed as tightly as I expected.
Thanks NetGalley and Canongate books!
This book is about two main things: firstly, the ability of humans to take a crisis (in this case a purple crack that appears in the sky but this could also be the pandemic or the climate crisis) and steadily integrate it into our lives as a new normal. This means memes, conspiracy theories, news outlets downplaying the crisis, and doom scrolling. Secondly, this book is about finishing university in your early twenties and facing an existential crisis as you enter unemployment and uncertainty and stare into the void of a terrible job/housing market (in this case, in Dublin). This is the harsh and unsettling reality swirling around the main character, Sophie.
This book does a great depiction of our relationship as a society with social media and our phones, especially young folk. The author clearly knows the internet well and understands how young adults talk, with great quotes like -
“The more I scroll and read, the more my anxiety grows, but I can’t stop. […] It isn’t dopamine hitting my brain, but it’s addictive all the same. Scrolling helps me to shut out my gnawing thoughts. It keeps alive the possibility that there might be an answer on the next thread.”
“I’m not convinced that people chat any more; they just watch the clock tick down until they can go to sleep again.”
There’s great scenes where Sophie doesn’t actually reply to her friends, just posting vague tweets she hopes they will reply to, or she wakes up at 6am and realises she hasn’t seen this side of the sunrise in ages, before picking up her phone and scrolling Twitter. The book also does a clever and nuanced portrayal of deep and trauma related insecurity about appearance and weight, a specific type of feminist man who ‘uses the language of social justice to manipulate women into sleeping with him’, and how an awful event that happens to you in real life is twisted away from you online until you’re the villain and the perpetrator is the victim. This is what the novel does really well.
Unfortunately, there are also a number of flaws with this book. A main theme in this book is about how Sophie falls into a depression and distances herself from her friends, convinced they all hate her. The book clearly wants you to think this is just due to Sophie’s issues and not because of her friends as people. However this fails to be believable because all of Sophie’s friends are objectively horrible people. Her best friend Grace is relentlessly nasty to her, only being nice when it seems to fit her idea that Sophie is a bit pathetic. Her other friend Steph tells Sophie that she does not want to cut off someone who has done something awful to Sophie because it’s too awkward. Lucy and Sophie could barely be described as friends, despite apparently having spent four years together at uni before the story started. Dan seems to like Sophie but is also off screen for most of the book, having moved to London. Finn is manipulative, although to be fair this does seem to be deliberate, and the less said about Rory the better. It just seems that Sophie would be happier without any of these people, so I struggle to believe that her mental health would be improved by slipping back into her friendship under the guise of being the pathetic friend who always needs them.
Another issue with the book is that it is relentlessly depressing and repetitive. I’ve read a few books where the main character falls into a depression, but the books themselves are not depressing. Sophie believes all of her friends hate her and talk about her, which seems to be true. Sophie struggles to get a job, and the job market is shit. The world seems to be ending, but if so it’s kind of slowly grinding to a halt while the media makes jokes. Sophie’s family are unkind to her and enable her twin sister to display psychotic behaviour towards her. Horrible things happen to Sophie through no fault of her own and then her horrible friends slowly abandon her. And then that’s basically it? There’s a pointlessness to this book which, although it may be the point, is still sort of pointless. Sophie stands up for herself at one point, which is great, but the writing distances you so much from the characters through never really letting you see exactly what Sophie is saying that you can’t really feel anything for her. I can see what the author was trying to do, but I think that it just wasn’t quite there.
A creative and timely book that just wasn’t quite executed as tightly as I expected.
Thanks NetGalley and Canongate books!
November 21, 2022
the main character is so miserable and full of dread it’s really hard to get through the book. i kept reading because in between all the self-destructive behaviour it was a little bit relatable every now and then and i kept hoping for her to realise the only way things could get better was through changing her mindset, which she eventually did… on the last page.
June 7, 2022
Maybe I'm too old now for the Trinity grad Bildungsroman genre
August 26, 2022
i dont know how to explain how amazing and real this book was so ill leave it to you to pick up a copy and give it a read; very worth it especially if youre irish, a woman, or a social media user.
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