The author choses an interesting way to not only include social media in the novel, but to flesh out her narrator. Direct quotes only come from secondary characters, while Sophie’s dialogue is merged into her internal dialogue, with responses from other characters the only way to distinguish a thought from a statement. At times I did feel like the book dragged on and it was repetitive in some sections. Sophie’s reliance on social media was very evident through out the novel but I found the author went into a lot of detail and it did not do much for the plot. The style in which the book was written was confusing to me. It was not always clear to me when Sophie was responding to someone or just thinking. The author uses quotation marks for the other characters but not for Sophie. It worked for most of the book as I did not notice this at first but then there were some sections of the book that were confusing to me. These include Snowflake by Louise Nealon, Eggshells by Caitriona Lally and The Beauty of Impossible Thingsby Rachel Donohue. The latter also has a reference to a strange phenomenon in the sky. I think about Facebook and the people I’m friends with who I haven’t spoken to in years. At one point it was a status symbol to have as many friends as possible, but now my friends list is a reminder of everyone I’ve lost touch with.” Sophie is a recent university grad living at home and trying to figure out what comes next. Her friends, many of whom are moving abroad, seem to have it all worked out, as does Hannah, her high-achieving twin sister. Sophie, meanwhile, spends her days blasting out her CV, doom-scrolling and texting two men; her nights out often end in binge drinking.

None of This is Serious - Irish Book Awards None of This is Serious - Irish Book Awards

The best thing about this book is that it uses these two different types of existential threats to Sophie to show how much we tend to focus on things that don't matter (boys) because of trauma, and how we use the internet to escape from the anxiety and depression the trauma and climate crisis (or possible apocalypse). Smart and well done. In an interesting narrative technique, Prasifka uses speech marks for other characters but Sophie’s dialogue is integrated into the text, such that in her first-person telling we sometimes don’t know if she is speaking or thinking.Dublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They’ve got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. Then, at a party, what was already unstable completely falls apart and Sophie finds herself obsessively scrolling social media, waiting for something (anything) to happen. None of This Is Serious is about the uncertainty and absurdity of being alive today. It's about balancing the real world with the online, and the vulnerabilities in yourself, your relationships, your body. At its heart, this is a novel about the friendships strong enough to withstand anything. Yeah, but it’s just a concept, it’s not like voting rights or the ability to afford food. Who cares?’ ‘Fine, well, maybe you’d rather we were all disempowered? That’s socialism, right?’ The debaters Grace knows from college are exchanging proper nouns at a speed that makes me dizzy. Sentences lose their meaning. There’s someone arguing for free speech, and someone else explaining the difference between that and actively platforming someone. I hear the phrase ‘the marketplace of ideas’. One of them tries to engage me in conversation, I think to help bolster his point, but I haven’t been paying attention. You can’t just lean into normative feminism, you have to subvert it first,’ Steph is adamant. ‘You can’t just go along with the whims of the hegemonic capitalist patriarchy and call it empowerment.’

This Is Serious - Wikipedia This Is Serious - Wikipedia

Okay, if you say so, but you shouldn’t put up with it. I wouldn’t put up with it if I were you. You need to say something to him, honestly.’ What, and I mean what, was that about?’ I don’t know what Grace means, but she pours me a glass of water and makes me sit and drink it. To make me feel better, she has one too. ‘Thank God that girl already left. I’ll kill him,’ she says, to herself more than me. We sit together in silence, nursing our water. Grace holds my hand when she notices a tear rolling down my face. ‘Things are going to change now, and change for the better, don’t worry,’ Grace says to me, but I find it hard to believe her. Things are ending, and yet I still feel the same. I’ll always feel this way. Dublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They’ve got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. She’s overshadowed by her best friend Grace. She’s been in love with Finn for as long as she’s known him. And she’s about to meet Rory, who's suddenly available to her online.I kept the book as far away from her as possible,” Prasifka told The Irish Times. “She didn’t know I had a book until after I’d signed with my agent and she didn’t read it until after the book deal.”