A review by servemethesky
Girl Gone Viral by Arvin Ahmadi
2.0
Oh man. This book was super compelling and a total page turner… and yet it just did not come together for me.
My main beef with this novel is that it raised so many fascinating issues about technology and privacy and then treated them with no nuance whatsoever. Just because it’s a YA novel doesn’t mean it can’t have nuance, c’mon! There’s an insane and alarming about of tracking going on and a blatant disregard for privacy. I kept thinking Opal would start to get it, it would bite her in the butt and she’d want to figure out smart and kind ways to navigate the online world, but she just brazenly stormed ahead, ignoring all valid concerns and dismissing the anti-tech crowd.
I also found Opal frustrating as a character. This book made me realize that while I LOVE an unlikable protagonist, the kind of unlikable protagonist I appreciate is one who’s at least somewhat self aware. Opal is manipulative, constantly lies to her closest friends, and will do anything to get ahead… and never really has a moment of reckoning or offers her peers a genuine apology. Damn, girl.
Final issue with the book: the timelines and technology just don’t make any sense. They act like it’s the way distant future from now—Instagram is dead, people don’t use phones anymore, VR is everything—but everyone knows who Taylor Swift and Kim K are and Seth Myers is still on TV? Okay…
I don’t even care about the abrupt prom-posal ending, I just wish the book hadn’t been so heavy handed in it’s shameless promotion of big tech. [massive spoiler] Having the Luddites turn out to have murdered Opal’s father just made me roll my eyes. Cartoonish evil is not interesting!
My main beef with this novel is that it raised so many fascinating issues about technology and privacy and then treated them with no nuance whatsoever. Just because it’s a YA novel doesn’t mean it can’t have nuance, c’mon! There’s an insane and alarming about of tracking going on and a blatant disregard for privacy. I kept thinking Opal would start to get it, it would bite her in the butt and she’d want to figure out smart and kind ways to navigate the online world, but she just brazenly stormed ahead, ignoring all valid concerns and dismissing the anti-tech crowd.
I also found Opal frustrating as a character. This book made me realize that while I LOVE an unlikable protagonist, the kind of unlikable protagonist I appreciate is one who’s at least somewhat self aware. Opal is manipulative, constantly lies to her closest friends, and will do anything to get ahead… and never really has a moment of reckoning or offers her peers a genuine apology. Damn, girl.
Final issue with the book: the timelines and technology just don’t make any sense. They act like it’s the way distant future from now—Instagram is dead, people don’t use phones anymore, VR is everything—but everyone knows who Taylor Swift and Kim K are and Seth Myers is still on TV? Okay…
I don’t even care about the abrupt prom-posal ending, I just wish the book hadn’t been so heavy handed in it’s shameless promotion of big tech. [massive spoiler] Having the Luddites turn out to have murdered Opal’s father just made me roll my eyes. Cartoonish evil is not interesting!