A review by mayday_the_cleric
Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers by Dylan Marron

Did not finish book. Stopped at 38%.
The premise of this book is highly intriguing. In this memoir, Dylan Marron, a popular online figure, confronts the people who've sent him hate massages and tries to have an open dialogue with them about important, yet contentious societal problems as a way to educate them on these topics. However, even with such an exciting concept, the only thing I kept thinking to myself while reading this is: Why do I feel so bored by this?

Firstly, I can see how this book can be eye-opening for some other people, but it doesn't really say anything groundbreaking or profound for me. A mere reiteration of the same talking points and sentiments that have already been shared by many other online influencers. The writing is also kinda bland and verbose as the author says a lot of things, but he doesn’t really offer anything substantial or noteworthy. Ironically enough, even though everything was happening in real time, there’s an overreliance on ‘telling, instead of showing’ in this book which kinda jarred the readers out of the immersion and took the winds out of the sails of the story. Overall, this book could’ve had a lot of potential, but it’s still held back by a few elements for me.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings