No One Is Talking About This
Ratings101
Average rating3.8
'Patricia Lockwood is the voice of a generation' Namita Gokhale'A masterpiece' Guardian'I really admire and love this book' Sally Rooney 'An intellectual and emotional rollercoaster' Daily Mail 'I can't remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book' David Sedaris'A rare wonder . . . I was left in bits' Douglas Stuart* WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2022 ** SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 ** SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021 ** A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK *______________________________________________This is a story about a life lived in two halves. It's about what happens when real life collides with the increasing absurdity of a world accessed through a screen. It's about living in world that contains both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.It's a meditation on love, language and human connection from one of the most original voices of our time.______________________________________________'An utterly distinctive mixture of depth, dazzling linguistic richness, anarchic wit and raw emotional candour' Rowan WilliamsA 2021 Book of the Year: Sunday Times, Guardian, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Times, New Statesman, Red, Observer, Independent, Daily Telegraph
Reviews
Popular Reviews
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People throw around the term "digital native" as if it's the province of particular generations (another fake idea), but Lockwood's character here is the ur-digital native, a person whose whole existence is mediated by the Portal's idiom.
As a person who considered herself terminally online for a period of time, and made her living from the vicissitudes of "content creation" before it was tagged with that name, there was a lot to identify with here. The push and pull between the Portal and the Real in the latter half of the book seems to come as a surprise to the protagonist but the rest of us saw it coming and, in my case, were filled with dread.
This one was weird. At times interesting, funny, emotional, and poignant — but very weird. The back cover calls it “genre-defying,” which feels right. I'd say this sits somewhere between poetry, satire, and internet speak. It's a novel made up of nearly schizophrenic, barely linear fragments of internet culture: a little bit of everything all of the time. But then towards the middle it starts dovetailing into a family drama, which feels like a departure from the earlier part of the book. Some really quotable lines throughout.
