Reviews with content warning for Bullying - We Had to Remove This Post

honestly, i don't know.
this book was quick and dark, entertaining, a bit comedic.
definitely very creative, the characters were extremely detailed and especially the main character felt very fleshed out with partially gruesome, partially wholesome memories and experiences.
reading this felt like reading an autobiography of a very disturbed, unsure, unreliable and morally gray woman.
i expected this to be a little bit more disturbing though. there were some descriptions of very unsettling images and videos, naturally, but those were always kept rather short.
the twist (

that the narrator is actually unreliable and has been raping her girlfriend for a while

) was executed well and definitely set the tone for the abrupt ending (

the reader no longer seeing things from the protagonist's view but rather watching her from afar, critically, realizing her ultimate self-conscious descend into madness

), but it just wasn't enough.
i read the e-book and didn't have them show me the page number, so when the book ended after what i presumed was maybe page 100/130, i was flabbergasted.
because nothing was resolved. it just left me wanting more, you know.
but also, i get it because i probably couldn't think of a better way to tie a story like this up either, so fair play.
there were a couple of great quotes though, interesting observations, phenomenal ideas.
a book worth reading (since it's only 130-ish pages long anyway) if you like darker and unhinged stories, but nothing more than a bit of entertainment unfortunately.

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sarah984's review against another edition

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dark informative fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Blistering little novel about being a content moderator for a major social media platform. The workplace environment felt realistic to me, and the way the characters spiral into strange behaviours because of what they're seeing every day make sense to me (especially the way they find themselves talking about real world scenarios as if they're videos they're watching for work).

I docked a star because I think the ending was a bit silly - it would have been stronger ending on the parking lot scene with the phone.

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cady_sass's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This is a fascinating topic but the execution is just okay. The author ends the book by stating clearly that while the novel is entirely fictional, the similarities to actual happenings is on purpose and goes on to list many, many sources about real life content moderators and legal action taken against Facebook. Unfortunately, I feel that those articles would be more interesting. The entire premise revolves around the idea that our main protagonist does not want any involvement in legal action against her former employer and promises the reader we will come to understand why. Well, I don’t. I think you just wrote 100 pages about getting dumped while you worked a shitty job.

If this is supposed to be horror, it didn’t go far enough. If this is supposed to be social commentary, it’s too weird and the focus is placed on the wrong parts of the story. In my humble opinion this could’ve used another 100 or so pages and have one of the characters really, truly fall off their rocker.

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lynxpardinus's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense

4.25

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rionstorm's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Definitely check the trigger warnings for this one. Parts of it are predictably difficult to read, especially some of the descriptions of gore (although they are brief).

The most interesting part of this book to me is the insight it gives into how content moderation affects the people who do it - both in terms of the impact on their mental health, and in terms of some of the material they are viewing

having the intended radicalizing or desensitizing effect, even if they're not someone who is coming across the material organically.

I thought it was also quite interesting to see how the material being viewed affected each person,

for example how the others' antisemetic radicalization was incomprehensible to Kayleigh, even as she was herself being desensitized to sexual violence to the point of possibly re-enacting it, seemingly without any self awareness.

If you're interested in the consequences of the growing volume and consumption of difficult material on the internet, online radicalization, or the way trauma is increasingly built into the experience of someone who uses the internet, you might like this book. Be warned though, it's pretty grim the whole way through.

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westcdf's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book was really good, it has a very shocking ending. I will say that I didn't particularly love the narrating style, it felt a little gimmicky. I do think the overall plot was excellent and the development of the characters was great. Made me feel queasy after I read it. Check the TWs for sure.

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