my first thoughts: did this woman just steal anecdotes from twitter to fill her quasi-novel? although couched in poetic language I recognised so many of the useless, wavelength-like arguments seen on twitter. the periodicity of fidget spinners discourse for example: from popular to predictable backlash, to autism/able-ism protection to gotchas on the former-backlashers, then finally excavating the fidget spinner history to pre-colonial times before landing in the ever-conflict field of Israel/Palestine. And, as the author points out, all this in a span of 4 days.

but as I immersed myself in the short paragraphs and disparate vignettes - recognising blow-ups, enjoying fresh interpretations, laughing out loud at absurdities, and recoiling at sudden bursts of profanity, it became clear that the reader was supposed to experience the novel like experiencing the scroll thru social media: what starts out as random enjoyable bits of information, deteriorates to depression. and then part two hit.

wow.

whereas the first part was consumed by 'the portal' and it's distracting reverberations, part two slams back into real, tangible life with a grief so expertly written, it had to come from experience. (and in the acknowledgements, we come to see this is true)

overall I was amazed at this young author's ability to clearly see the absurdity of our current obsession with useless minutia (even while immersing herself in it). I really didn't think the foreground of social media had any value to a creative mind, but she used it as a springboard for emphasizing that life is always much closer.