A bizarre yet consistently compelling read that ultimately disappoints. ( )

Quite a book. Very well written, extremely self-referential. A seemless alchemy of the *new now* effortlessly writing in a voice of our very present: online news and information, social media, texting, emailing, online dating. It’s a jarringly accurate commentary on the fractured narcissism of our present online state of affairs seeping into our quotidian. For an unlikable protagonist, she was pretty likable. Which seems a neat trick. Like how one can loath and exalt oneself. It was dense in a way—The sentences were good enough not to rush through, but I still had a feeling of gobbling it down. But then left a bit empty and befuddled at the end. I’m not sure if I was supposed to understand something more of it. Maybe, to quote the final sentence, that was a part of the point?

Thought provoking and timely, yet exhausting and pretentious... which, being that this is a novel about the internet, is to be expected. ( )

Wanted to like this much more than I did. The writing was very “high on its own supply” which I can appreciate was at least partly intentional. The story spun away from its initial premise pretty early, and I didn’t love where the plot went (or, maybe more accurately, didn’t go). The voice was definitely fresh and modern but seemed overly impressed with itself at the same time. I almost never DNF, plus this book is short and I’m a fast reader, but once I did finish, I was thinking “what’s the point?”

Recently read Detransition, Baby, which I’d recommend as an alternative for this book, as it has a decidedly modern voice but a truly compelling plot and sympathetic characters. ( )

A great, knowing narrative tone, interesting plot, quick and sharp characterisations of the characters, even incidental ones.

The huge quantities of introspection and app-using occasionally made me want to throw my phone out the window and go look at a tree, but I guess that's my fault for reading a book about the internet. ( )