No One Is Talking About This: 'A literary star' Guardian

Parents Book Club @MumMeBooks read this for The Reading Agency to shadow this Booker Prize shorlisted nominee.
It is a real 'pagescroller' blurring the narrative in the two worlds we all live as real life: online and real. Through Part 1, we journey with the protagonist through their thoughts through the ever-present, never stopping online scrolling world in which they earn their living, discovering flashes of their life and family in slices between the scrolling.Part two begins when the real world crashes into the online one, where scrolling stops and real life crashes in. We are all living this life to some degree and Patricia Lockwood's creative use of narrative blinkers you to focus on the blind spot of now - real and online - what is real & living and important, how these world both blur, inform & effect the other..and what is really important in living a real life
This books is a visceral read, pulling you along with the narrative to feel all emotions through the book from numb disregard to sobbing.. is a unique book that has all the hallmarks of a Booker prizewinner and is well worth a read 5/5

I thought this book was really unique and it challenged me to consider my own relationship with social media. By calling it the 'Portal', thereby disconnecting us from what we know, we can look at our own internet use from a different perspective. I became very aware of how much I check my phone while I'm reading! It took me a little bit of time to get used to the writing style, but I came to really appreciate the short passages.

There is no doubt that Patricia Lockwood is an intelligent writer with a great use of words and her reviews of the works of others are outstanding. However, for me, I felt that for all the use of clever writing this book fell short of a worthwhile read. It is listed as fiction but having heard her talk about it on several occasions she has stated that it is autobiographical. Part I is effectively the experience of our narrator as she enters, and communicates, through the portal. As a result of a tweet 'Can dogs be twins?' she is invited to go on a global tour and proclaimed a star. Dubious premise for me to be honest. Part II is the story of her niece and the sad family events that were experienced around her short life. To me this second part was over shadowed by the shallowness of the first which did its best to disconnect its reader from emotional connection. That said this book is as ever a well observed and sad commentary on our culture and in particular the way that some individuals in our society have disconnected due to their reliance on social media - in this case the 'portal'. For me the idea is not new and I felt reading this book that I was in fact disconnecting from anything useful to my life in terms of the time spent reading this. Maybe it would speak more to those who are addicted to the 'portal' and raise questions worthy of them to consider - if they were to read this in the first place.