OMG Jenny, the main character of this book, started out being the type of person, friend, enemy, that I’ve spent most of my life trying to avoid, and have unfortunately crossed paths with way too many times. This woman is so obsessed with social media that she has no time to live her real life, with real people, having real relationships. For example, her best friend sends her a couple of texts asking her if she has time to chat (and you can tell there is some urgency to her requests), but she doesn’t even bother to respond, instead spends time stalking some random influencer’s profile for hours, and gets annoyed when she texts her best friend about her flat mates and doesn’t get a response later. Wtf woman!!

Having seen the evils of social media at work and how it changes people into complete weirdos I deleted all of my own channels a few years ago and do not miss it. Reading through Jenny’s life therefore made me want to shake her all the time! 

But then suddenly, without realizing how it crept up on me, I started to like her, to feel for her. She might be annoying and silly and obsessed, but she is going through some life events that she tries to handle alone and the trauma is a little too much to contain. Some of the people she surrounds herself with are awful (Art, her mum on occasion), but some are really special (Kelly, Nicolette, her mum too). And as a reader I began to relate to Jenny and her choices. 

The prose is hilarious, witty, and I laughed out loud quite a few times (and cried). While I honestly didn’t like Jenny very much for about half of the book, too self-absorbed, too annoying, I couldn’t help feeling for her, and grew to actually like her by the end. 

I love how the author uses emails, texts, letters, as well as regular narrative prose in the book, it creates an interesting and fun read, very contemporary, and I think a lot of people will relate to at least some of what Jenny goes through (and puts herself through). I found it quite brilliant how the author takes the reader on a real emotional ride, pulling you from loathing to sympathy, and enjoying all types of feelings along the way.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.