Catherine Prasifka - None of This Is Serious

Catherine Prasifka - None of This Is Serious 

5⭐

Genre: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Irish Literature

Pages: 304

Format: Paperback

Publisher:  Canongate 

Date Published: 7th April 2022

Huge thank you to Canongate for sending me a copy of this book to read and review. 

 

Book Blurb: 

Dublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They've got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. She's overshadowed by her best friend Grace. She's been in love with Finn for as long as she's known him. And she's about to meet Rory, who's suddenly available to her online.

At a party, what was already unstable completely falls apart and Sophie finds herself obsessively scrolling social media, waiting for something (anything) to happen.

None of This Is Serious is about the uncertainty and absurdity of being alive today. It's about balancing the real world with the online, and the vulnerabilities in yourself, your relationships, your body. At its heart, this is a novel about the friendships strong enough to withstand anything.

My Review: 

Why is this book so relatable? It perfectly portrays how hard it is to be in your twenties in the 2010s or/and 2020s, where most of your life is dictated by social media and the internet culture. It beautifully displays that even though you are connected with the whole world, you can still feel so lonely, out of place like an outsider and lost.

The book follows Sophie who just graduated from university and feels lost, whilst her friends slowly move on with their new jobs, relationships and friendship groups. Sophie feels stuck, as she can’t find a job, her friendships are stagnating and her love life is a mess. She is vulnerable and anxious, as she has these dreams about having a house and a great career, but all she is getting is rejection, whilst her friends and her sister just waltz into a job. She also feels lost between two men, her love for one and her newfound connection with the other. For Sophie internet and social media is an escape, there she finds the answers she needs, where she feels she can be herself and where she can find peace. That is until ‘The Crack’ appears in the sky across the world. The whole internet is exploding and Sophie realises that her ‘save place’ became just another place where she is an anxious, lonely and vulnerable individual.

I loved how this book explores both relationships in real life and online, quite in-depth, as well as shows how sometimes the online world can be an escape, yet sometimes it consumes you and makes you feel worse about reality. This book also perfectly balances current societal issues with everyday life, it just felt very relatable. It explores more than just relationships and love, it also explores the importance of friendships and socialising in the real world, especially when we live most of our lives online.

The character exploration in this book was just so on point. I loved Sophie's character. Yes, she was annoying at times, but I could relate to her so much. I have been her at some points in my life and I felt like her many times too. Sophie portrays that sometimes your mind is your enemy and it is so true, especially when you are trying to navigate real life and the uncertainty that comes with it. She is flawed, raw, real and imperfectly perfect, just as any of us are.

I also really liked the concept of ‘The Crack’, since it was supposed to portray Covid-19, as how slowly from panic and the unknown, ‘The Crack’ became a new normal, whilst also spreading rumours, and conspiracy theories online.

Overall: I loved this book so much, as it was full of relatable characters (not just Sophie, although Sophie was very relatable), and subjects that are so relevant and important to talk about. I really enjoyed Prasifka’s writing too, as the novel was so easy to read and it did grip me from the very beginning.  Can’t wait to see what she writes next! 

About the Author:

Catherine Prasifka was born in Dublin in 1996. She studied English Literature at Trinity College Dublin and has an MLitt in Fantasy from the University of Glasgow. She is obsessed with learning about how stories work and has ruined nearly all of her favourite books and movies by overanalysing them. She works as a creative writing teacher in Dublin. None of This Is Serious is her first novel.

https://canongate.co.uk/contributors/17511-catherine-prasifka/#:~:text=Catherine%20Prasifka%20was%20born%20in,and%20movies%20by%20overanalysing%20them.