I listened to this book on audio and think that the narrator done a great performance for the book.. However with the writing style (I have heard it to be written in tweet or social media type sentences), I feel some of this is lost in the narration of the book which can make it feel disjointed from a listeners perspective.
It would be something to bear in mind if choosing to go for audio rather then reading the text.
I do also feel the first and second half of the book feels like two different narrators. The sudden drastic change in life situation that the character faces in part is why and understand the reason for this it just was quite jarring.
The book does talk heavily on grief and does leave the reading thinking about their relationship with social media and how they use it. The compassion between the reality of real life (from the second half) and what we construct online with performative action by choosing what we post or consume. .
In conclusion although well preformed by the narrator the structure of the book for audio may not has worked as well as it does reading the formatted text.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

I ended up DNFing this as it wasn't my cup of tea at all!
Thank you for the opportunity to review though!

No one is talking about this 🌈🌥

A different book that’s for sure!

Ad - gifted

The two halves of the story read like completely different books, but are quite complementary in bringing together the conclusion of realising what truly matters in life.

The book is set in an almost (but not quite) alternate universe where online presence and social media has taken over, and everyone’s experiences of the news, and relationships has moved to intense short bursts of sharing things online. It’s a bit of an uncomfortable distance from real life now. Everything is a bit more extreme but that really helps highlight how we are actually living now.

The narrator shares her life and connects with people on “the portal” and there are many references to real internet culture that felt very current and observationally funny (chonky bois, mood, yaaas). That being said, I definitely think you need to be someone who spends a lot of time online to really “get” a lot of this. It’s got quite a specific target audience and I can imagine someone who doesn’t really use social media or understand those who do reading this and thinking “wtf have I just read” (I mean to be honest even I felt like that a lot of the time!)

The second half of the book hits home with tragic events for the narrator’s family. The contrast of this part of the book to the first highlights what really matters, and how important it is to be present in real life.

I both read and listened to this and I think with the role the narrator brings to the story the audiobook really does add something to the reading experience here.

3 stars for me, a little bit too out their for me to really love but I have to commend the author for producing something so clever and different.

Thanks to @netgalley and @bloomsburypublishing for the advance ebook.

This is such a book of two halves, the first irreverent and bitingly satirical; the second almost heartbreakingly poignant. We follow our unnamed narrator as she navigates 'The Portal'; an all-encompassing social media world where people are famous for showing their genitalia online and she herself went viral with a post about dogs. This first half is very funny and a bit toe-curling at times, with its on the nose portrayal of media obsessed individuals and the way things can spiral out of control online. The way in which the narrative unfolds is very much like a stream of consciousness, but told in vignettes, with short bursts. Reading like a social media feed, it is really clever. Following a dramatic event in her real life, the second half becomes quieter and, while still having the punchiness in style, is much more raw. Reading the author's acknowledgements really puts things into perspective and had a big impact on me as a reader. This book won't be for everyone and is uncomfortable and unsettling, but I thought it was fabulous.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The thing I loved about this book is that it is so different to any other I’ve read. I’ve never read a book with an unnamed protagonist. Some of the observations are amusing and astute.
The disjointed style didn’t appeal to me I’m afraid. I think I find it easier to relate to characters presented in a more traditional way.

I listened to this on audiobook via NetGalley and I really enjoyed it. I finished it a while ago now and have been struggling with how to review it. I don’t really know how to express my thoughts on this one. It follows a woman who is obsessed with the Portal, her posts regularly go viral and she is famous within this social network. She thinks in social media soundbites and her life seems to revolve around what would make a good post and how best to express her thoughts online. She questions this life though and wonders about whether this life online is hell and is it going to be what we’re doing forever. Then one day she gets a text from her mum to say that something is very wrong. All of a sudden she has to confront real life and the potential for tragedy in her own family whilst still feeling very much under the influence of the Portal. The second half of the novel is her dealing with what has happened and the juxtaposition between the portal and the very real situation her family has to confront and cope with. I loved this novel, I found it very thought provoking and it’s one that I keep finding myself musing on. I think I’d like to buy myself a physical copy of the book so that I can read it again in print form as it feels like a book to be experienced in both forms. I definitely recommend this one, particularly if you find yourself obsessively scrolling through social media on a frequent basis!

This one was not for me. I enjoyed the narration and it's comic timing however I found that after a few chapters I was tired of an onslaught of jokes. I found myself waiting so long for the story to begin that I was disinterested in the characters by the time the plot began to take shape in the second half. Lockwood is un deniably an incredible writer but I felt this missed the mark.

I have spent three days trying to review this book and haven't been able to as my words just cannot do it justice. If you are an on-line citizen, you will love this, if not, a lot if the first half might go over you're head and be confusing. This book was an incredibly moving and beautiful book that dealt with some very difficult issues in such a real and believable way. This is a masterpiece that firmly places the author as the true voice of a generation and of the online community. A masterpiece. Initially I was unsure but I let the author guide me and realised everything was exactly as it needed to be. It made me laugh out loud and then ripped out my heart. Devastatingly, hauntingly, beautiful. This book is perfect.

This was weird, addictive and unlike anything I’ve ever listened to/read. It managed to influence me to carry out some reflection as to how I’m online. The positives, the negatives. Part 1 and 2 feel very different from one another. Which took some time to get back in the swing but loved where it went. It developed into something very moving and thought provoking. I went into this knowing hardly anything about it and loved how that added to my overall experience. Will most certainly look out for more from this author!

Astoundingly original! I was completely bowled over by this book - first by how astute the author was in her comments about 'life on the portal', and then by the tragedy that befalls in the second part of the book.

I also can't tell you how relieved I was to read a book from a young writer that wasn't set in London, or concerning people working in Publishing. This is exactly the sort of book I've been dying to read!!

If I could describe this book in one world it would be...interesting!

The book essentially follows a women who has become addicted to a social media platform called Portal. The first half of the book is a commentary on social media, specifically how it has influenced society and how it has consequently changed us as human beings. This changes half way through when an event changes this women's outlook, and the book sees a merge of reality and social media.

The premise of this book is certainly interesting in its construction. The writing style is unique and won't be for everyone, but it fits the books narrative. I did find however that the book had a lot to say but sometimes at the expense of adding depth to the story. I think if the author had added more focus onto a few of the ideas she had regarding this books narrative, rather than trying to fit a lot of discourse, I personally would have had more of an emotional and visceral connection to both the characters and the overall story. I felt I understood what Lockwood was trying to achieve but the execution wasn't quite there for me.

Overall, this was a good book. The writing style was definitely it's strength, and the premise was interesting, I just think it needed a little more depth.

This is definitely different. I would say it is a stream of consciousness but very contemporary. Funny and brilliantly observed writing about our online selves and undoubtedly thought provoking. The second half of the book is a complete flip. Still introspective but with the added dimension of a family crisis. Glad I read it and has to be my favourite of this genre..

A book in two halves, the first based online with life revolving around an online presence, the second off line human life. Took a while to get into flow of how it was set out but really enjoyed the humour and mockery of first part. Second part was far more serious and beautifully written. Narration was excellent. Thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook.

From your experience you know Patricia Lockwood to be (tick all the correct answers)
a) Author of the memoir “Priestdaddy” and an highly thoughtful contributor to the London Review of Books
b) Author of the harrrowing viral poem “Rape Joke”
c) Originator of the Twitter concept of ironical sexts (sample: “I am a living male turtleneck. You are an art teacher in winter You put your whole head through me”) and author of one of the all time great literary tweets: @parisreview. So is Paris any good or not

All three are true but depending on if your answer was more a/b (or even none of the above) than b/c may depend on how you engage with the first half of this book - a novel in which the wildly heralded Poet Laureate of Twitter aims with some success to re-cast cutting edge literary fiction for the world of Twitter and Instagram.

The first person narrator of the novel is unnamed, but the book is heavily autofictional.

Lockwood has marked with some profundity that the reason that so much fiction is now autofictional is that Google allows us to discover that it is (whereas previously we would know of author’s lives only what they chose to reveal) – a quote I found out when Googling to see how much of this novel was autofictional.

The narrator has gained fame in the Portal (Lockwood’s term for the internet or perhaps more specifically given that the word “internet” is used at least once in proximity to the Portal) for a single viral tweet: Can a dog be twins?. Now her life seems to consist of two main parts – sitting on her chair participating in the newly emerging consciousness of the Portal and travelling around the world talking about the newly emerging consciousness of the Portal – and the first part’s plot matches this:

The plot! That was a laugh. The plot was that she sat motionless in her chair.

The book is a series of (to quote Lauren Oyler’s narattor in “Fake Account” “Necessarily short sections, simple, aphoristic sentences, more of an essay than a novel.” - a style that is familiar now from Jenny Offill (and others) and was parodied (slightly unsuccessfully in my view) in Oyler’s novel but which Lockwood and her narrator defend (with reservations)

Why were we all writing like this now? Because a new kind of connection had to be made, and blink, synapse, little space-between was the only way to make it. Or because, and this was more frightening, it was the way the portal wrote.

Many if not most of the sections are about viral tweets, Instagram posts and memes (almost all I think taken from 2018, very little of which is actually explained. But then – my comment – I can think of a book which for full appreciation relies on an encyclopedic knowledge in one City on a single day in 1904 (or tens of pages explaining the references) and that is considered perhaps the greatest novel of
all time.

Returning to this novel - for those who haunted the internet that year to the extent of the narrator’s inhabitation of planet Portal (and who are likely the a/b of my introduction) much I think will be very familiar indeed and bring lots of knowing smiles that come when you get or are reminded of a shared in-joke (and so much of this section is about how the Portal is a form of shared consciousness and shared jokes and ideas – and of how difficult it is to convey that sense to future generations or to those not of the Portal).

For those like me who did not – the choices I think are (1) to ignore the memes altogether; (2) to google-while-you-read; or (3) (as a mid-case) to see which ones you can spot/recall. I read somewhere between the third (I was impressed with myself for example for spotting the reference to the “Cat People” short-story but it was a rare triumph) and most of the time the second approach – and would not recommend the first or second – as I think the memes and understanding them is important (see end of my review)

Some – perhaps many - of the references themselves say something deeper I think about the themes that the author is exploring – sometimes in a way which is concisely explored (the book is full of eminently quotable aphorisms) and sometimes in an exercise left for the reader.

One that intrigued me is a lengthy section describing watching a documentary of Thom Yorke singing “Creep” to a festival audience, a section which contains perhaps the second most insightful discussion of that song I have ever seen (the first of course to any member like me of the MTV rather than Twitter generation was by Beavis and Butthead). The narrator describes how Yorke’s almost palpable disgust at how a song which was originally and specifically around alienation/isolation is now hollered back to him by huge crowds of the very type of people that excluded him - suddenly allows him to recapture and re-own that very sense of detachment of what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here at the heart of the song. And of course one thinks of how Twitter has changed over time and how the narrator and Lockwood and continually trying to reclaim the original sense of freedom they felt there against their disgust at it being the very thing that permitted and enabled the rise of Trump (called in the book the Dictator).

This first part of the novel is nothing if not bold in its claims to re-address the issue of what literary fiction should be in the 2120s. As per my opening quote the Joycean comparison is explicit – and reinforced by a visit to Dublin and a trip to Scotland leads the narrator and her husband to sneer at tourists visiting a lighthouse only to realise later that the tourists are paying homage to Virginia Woolf.

Another trip leads her to view an ancient cairn and reflect: “They said all you needed to be remembered was one small stone piled on another,” she thinks to herself. “Wasn’t that what we were doing in the portal, small stone on small stone on small stone?”

The second part of the novel gives a very abrupt and very deliberate change of gears. The narrator’s sister is pregnant and the LOL-ing at the baby’s head on its scans suddenly takes a dramatic turn after an urgent message from her mother asking her to fly back to the family home, as Doctors have discovered that the baby is suffering from Proteus syndrome (gigantism as suffered by the elephant man) and will likely not survive – the only real question being if her sister will also survive given Ohio laws which even make it illegal to induce a pregnant woman weeks before term. This leads to agony for her strongly, in fact militantly pro-life father – forced now to “live in the world he has created” (that itself an echo of course of the Twitterati’s dilemma in Trumps America)
.
And then unexpectedly the baby survives and the book takes an even more serious turn.

Of course it is tempting to view the baby as a metaphor – a metaphor for the unexpected survival but also unusual and unprecedented development of Twitter as a medium, for the hyperbole and gigantism of the internet, or alternatively (as the narrator increasingly finds true feelings and depth of emotion in her love for her niece) as a metaphor for the difference between the Portal and IRL. And both of these metaphors are absolutely relevant.

But also as the narrator remarks “It spoke of something deep in human beings how hard she had to pinch herself when she started thinking of it all as a metaphor.” – because this part of the book is given much greater emotional heft when you realise it is the least fictional part and that it is very much about Lockwood’s own experiences and her own niece. This section will I think be seen as emotionally moving by some and emotionally manipulative by others – I was much more in the former camp.

It also of course causes the narrator to examine her use of the Portal: her popular and archly ironical persona there which has given her whatever measure of identity and recognition she has “If all she was was funny, and none of this was funny, where did that leave her?”; her realisation that the universal shared experiences of the internet do not match the individual or closely shared nature of personal tragedy “The previous unshakeable conviction that someone else was writing the inside of her head was gone”; but also a recognition that much of what she has learn through Twitter and the shared vocabulary and shortcuts she has established with her sister do enable them to find a way to navigate through and communicate during an impossible situation - “For whatever lives we lead they do prepare us for this moment.”

But the strongest parts of this book are those which just examine the miracle of life, the smell of a baby’s head, that celebrate the small battles that her niece wins in a war that she was already destined to lose, even before her birth.

There is so much else I could say about this book but I would urge people to engage with it.

I listened to this book in Audiobook form – where it is excellently narrated by Kristen Sieh who captures, I think, the tone of the book perfectly. If I had any criticism it would probably be to drop the accents – particularly the Australian one. One thing about listening to the Audiobook while say walking your dog (as I did) is that unlike reading a Kindle version, or a paper copy (but with a smartphone by your side) it is not so easy to Google the various references/memes etc and find yourself drawn into your own portal. Normally I would say that is a good thing – I aim (not always successfully) to use literature to escape from the omni-presence of the screen – but here I think this does not allow full identification with the underlying worldview at the centre of the book.

I listened to the audiobook for this title.
This book missed the mark for me. I felt that although there were some astute observations that made me smile, I visualised the book as just a person's ramblings and observations and with no real plot to get stuck into.
The narrator was definitely easy to listen to, but I believe she was disadvantaged by the book's actual substance.
This one was just not for me, unfortunately.

I’m confused.
Part 1 was an unfunny stream of consciousness about being (capital ‘O’) Online. It was drivel.
Part 2 dealt with some unexpected, heavy-hitting, heartbreaking topics.
I did not like or relate to the main character/narrator, therefore, I was left with an overall ambivalence towards the book (verging on dislike). I can’t think of anybody I’d recommend it to.

No complaints about the audiobook. I didn’t connect with the content.

I received a copy of this audiobook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. You won’t be surprised to hear that these opinions are my own.

Life before and after.

A visceral comment on how social media shapes the way we communicate and what we perceive as vital.

No One Is Talking About This is a novel in two parts: social media and the ‘I’.

Narrated in the fragmentary form of a social media feed, Part 1 satirises social media’s herd mentality of humour and outrage: ‘Every day their attention must turn like the shine on a school of fish, all at once, toward a new person to hate.’

Despite funny-absurd, razor sharp observation, the quickfire gags soon outstay their welcome.

Fortunately, the mood takes a seismic shift when the unnamed narrator receives a text from her mother, ‘Something has gone wrong.’ Startling word choices capture love and grief and raw emotion.

This is innovative and beautiful writing.

Audiobook: Narrator Kristen Sieh successfully conveys the wry, self-aware voice of a social media celebrity, as well as gut-wrenching human tragedy.

My thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury UK Audio for the audiobook ARC.

This book is marketed primarily as a kind of 'internet novel', placed among many others in this newfound genre. In reality, it is only half that. Alongside some painfully accurate and hilarious quips about the internet (that can only have been written by someone whose formative years were spent there, as is the case with Lockwood), this book is about relationships, family, and ultimately, love.

I know that sounds cheesy, but it is somehow exactly not that and did make me cry in the bath at least twice. Extra recommendation, too, for the audiobook, which is narrated by Kristen Sieh (also the voice of the AART and ABFE audiobooks, making her one of my all-time favourite narrators).

Short, sharp, and splendid. I'd recommend it to anyone.

*Audiobook provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Netgalley as always, the real MVP*

I heard mixed reviews about this so wasn't sure what to expect, but it was exactly what I hoped, and more - complex satire about the internet, modern relationships, and how we live now. I really wasn't expecting the thread that unfolds in the second half of the book, but really enjoyed it, and found it a well-plotted novel; not a simplistic arc and not a plotless meditation on contemporary malaise, but a nuanced and beautifully written gem.