chambers was cooking so hard i forgot there was even gonna be a robot

Oh - hello, a dialogue tag! (crap, so you mean the narrator hasn't actually been speaking since the chapter started? I so thought that he was, thus the Uncle Colm comment)

So from a standpoint of simply viewing the text - skimming over it rather than comprehending it - I can see an aesthetic appeal to leaving the quotation marks out. It does lend a sort of journalistic crispness; if you were just looking at the pages rather than reading them, I for one would be inclined to jump to the conclusion that this was a recounting of something real that actually happened. Not fictional.

But as I actually read, this crispness falls away. There's a bland flatness to the dialogue; it feels like I'm reading a tv script rather than a book. Immediately I'm picturing 2d people on a TV screen as I plod through the dialogue, rather than 3d people in a 3d setting as generally happens for me when I read, and it leaves me tense and uncomfortable. It feels like Rooney doesn't want me to get too involved with her characters or her setting; like I'm being pushed away, held back, but instead of going to the trouble of actually writing cold, distant characters she plonks down this artificial plexiglass shield instead.

As well, introducing this level of writerly conceit (by which I mean "a strange technique that the writer seems really invested in," not her opinion about herself) three pages into the first chapter seems like a really Foster Wallace or Eggers in the aughts thing to do. Wanky, not in a sexual sense but in the "look at me I am a Serious Writer and I Don't Care About Your Rules."

again: three pages into the first chapter.

Okay, ma'am. 🙄 I'll let you cook for a while to see if you're actually going somewhere with the insistence on this - I've barely started this book, it's possible you could be. But let the record show right away that it strikes me as silly and affected.

Is anyone else feeling so unmotivated to read this month?! It's not a slump, I want to read! I have three amazing books on the go that I am so into and am excited to read them, but then i sit down to read and nothing. Or I fall asleep, or I end up somehow on my phone?! It's really annoying me and I want it to stop hahaha!! This usually doesn't really happen to me. Usually If I'm not reading it because something else has caught my attention...but I'm literally just starring at a wall

@jenniferpagebound was onto something when she called this a love letter to Gen X. As much as I consider myself barely old enough to count as such, born in 1979 - it's not just nostalgia, this book? But layers and layers of it.

The fascination Relatively Tiny Me had with the huge box that hooked up to the weird TV that only had flashy green letters on it: eventually the parents explained how the keyboard worked, and let me write my first grade fanfic about the cartoons I watched on Saturday mornings.

Eventually that box became a slightly smaller box that could put blocky flat pictures on the weird TV! Which was great because it meant nine-year-old me could play one of the greatest kid's games of all time: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.

(I saw a post a bit ago discussing what we read that made us first feel like adults. For me it wasn't a book, it was absolutely this glamorous jet-setting game where you not only flew around to exotic locales but had to know facts about them to be able to chose the spy and progress the game. Which, you know, was probably not the greatest - considering I was 9, thinking I was grown. Good thing I was too nerdy to get myself in much trouble.)

I haven't even gotten to the box that made the bzzzzt-bleeeyup noises yet and you're already thinking "sure grandma, let's get you to bed" so back to the point: SO many layers of nostalgia in this book it's basically a bubble bath for the brain. I don't think I'm going to apologize for liking it any more.

I think it’s fascinating how when you read a book those characters in your head are SO REAL (even though they’re not) and after you finish it, you just assume they’re over there living another adventure. But in reality……THEY WERE NEVER THERE TO BEGIN WITH. So then you think, “but….they’re…..they’re real. Like, they had LIVES.” But they didn’t. Anyway, just wanted to remind book readers that we’re all insane 🤣🤭🤪🥹

saw the map and there was an area with "populated by massive TWATS" written on it and IM SEATED

No judgment. This is a safe space.

🙋🏽‍♀️I’ll start, let’s see….: I read multiple books at once and then complain about being confused. If I’m reading at home, somehow my socks always come off mid-book. I’ll stop mid-chapter if I feel something big coming because I get anticipatory anxiety and then I avoid the book until I’m good and ready (could be hours, days, months, etc). I’ve read fanfiction before finishing the canon material. And finally, I’ve Googled “do they end up together” the minute a fine sounding character appeared in the book lol

Don’t be shy, share with the classss 😌