No One Is Talking About This: A Novel

A criss cross between the all-consuming internet and reality, how we deal with "portal" life vs. how we deal with real life. While I understand what the author was trying to do, I struggled to make sense of the disjointed and fragmented sections of the book. I almost felt like it would have been less chaotic to combine the two.

Okay, here's the deal. (1) This isn't really a novel. It's really more of a long poem resembling a story. (2) If you didn't spend most of 2016-2019 on Twitter and similar websites, you won't understand many of the references. (3) This is an amazing poem for people who did live on/in Twitter for those years. It's beautiful, hilarious, and horrifying in just the right ways. (4) I've been in those rooms empty of trivial things-- and life pretty much feels just like this book after that.

Also, this review is a million times better than mine: https://goodreads.com/review/show/4363396075?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

This is one of the most unusual books I have encountered in a while! It was recommended by Blindboy on his podcast so I thought I’d give it a go. I spent the whole of Part One (about three hours of audio) trying to figure out was going on! I am certainly not internet-illiterate, but listening to this made me feel like a Gen Xer - I didn’t understand about half of the references and terminology. It is written in such a fragmented way, jumping from one subject to another with not a lot of clear plot. I did stick with it, however, as I was curious as to where it might lead. If you make it to Part Two, you will then get some kind of context as to what the author is trying to do. Lockwood very cleverly contrasts a life of existing almost purely "online" to one where the main character is suddenly forced to distance herself from "the portal" and to clutch at her real life for as long as possible. It is quite a sobering second half, so be prepared for that. I am glad I made it through, as this has been a much discussed novel, but I don't think I will ever need to read it again!