Review of a Bad Novel

I Hate the Internet by Jarett Kobek describes itself as a bad novel. It takes place in San Francisco and follows made- up characters, the main character being Adeline, a kind of famous women with unpopular opinions in a culture that hated women. Adeline published a comic book with her friend Jeremy, he wrote the words and she drew the pictures. Considering she was a woman and he was a black man, they adopted pseudonyms to insure they actually sold their book. One day, a producer of the comics let the truth slip during a press conference revealing Adeline and Jeremy’s identity. People became fascinated by Adeline and how she was a woman working in comics and doing well, this led to her kind of fame. One day, Adeline spoke in her friend’s class, and one of his students recorded what she said and posted it online. This monologue consisted of many unpopular opinions of Beyoncé, Rihanna, and women in tech. This was her big mistake that caused people to begin sending terrible things to her.

One of the reasons I feel like this novel is all over the place is because there is really not much to the plot, and it’s all the other things mentioned within the books that give it meaning. The author goes on long and hard to read tangents about anything and everything. He explains things that don’t normally need to be explained and puts it in the simplest ways to make it all seem pointless. For example, him describing basketball as “throwing a rubber ball around a rectangular court” makes the sport sound useless and makes us feel dumb for enjoying it. Most of the pages are filled with rants about what seems to be pointless information. Some could argue that this is what making the novel humorous, and this is part of the quirk of the novel, but a disagree. This makes it hard to read.

         Of course, there’s a deeper meaning to this story and a reason it is being told, but because of all the tangents, the deeper meaning got lost on me and left me thinking “What is the point of this chapter?” But really, the book shows how terrible the internet could be sometimes and how it could make someone feel like their life is over and any given point. Overall, I feel the message could have been portrayed in a better way but hey, at least the author knows it is a bad novel.