Hype

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair review.

I guess I'm the odd one out: I thought this book was a great premise pretty badly (or maybe just mediocre-ly) executed.

We need to have more discussions about how social media is screwing with our heads, our post-truth society, the phenomenon of influencers and our obsession with "authenticity" as a commodity. We are living in a world of grifters, of intentional blindness to facts, of obsession with surface instead of substance, of performative "living." This book promised to explore that world--and explain why it's so very addictive. So I was so ready to love it. But I really didn't, and I'm unsure of whether that's because this is an ARC and there's still a lot of editing to be done before it's published or if it's just a weakness of Bluestone's writing.

The book uses the frame of the Fyre Festival debacle to explore the whole world of internet hype--an approach that could have worked. But I was unimpressed by the writing. I don't know if the book just hasn't been line-edited yet or what, but the prose lacked clarity. I felt like the narrative jumped back and forth through time, buried the lede, didn't explain things in enough detail, and jumped abruptly from one topic to another. I really struggled with it on a paragraph level sometimes. These felt like things that should have been fixed before the book got to the ARC stage. And I don't think that it actually does explain why "we're following" as the title claims--but that is probably the fault of the publisher for choosing that title and making that claim. It's like a bad headline that doesn't match the article that was actually written.

A few things that really bugged me that I am almost certain will be fixed before publication. 1. The lack of foot/endnotes; at several points, references were made to "studies" or "research" that had me going, "Okay, I need a citation and I need to read the original source to make sure it really said what Bluestone says it said because I'm skeptical.” I guess I'll have to borrow the published edition from my local library so I can follow up on sources. 2. The conclusion, which addresses the Covid pandemic, felt incomplete. It's entirely possible that it is incomplete--that more will be added to it before publication. If so, I rescind these criticisms.

It's less clear to me whether the other thing that really irked me will be fixed: Bluestone would reference something--an event, a person--and not explain or give context. I mean, I know who Elizabeth Holmes is because I am the kind of person who listens to podcasts about that sort of thing. But there are many, many people who would have no idea who she is, and yet Bluestone references her and then doesn't actually explain who she is until a later chapter. Or she makes several references to Caroline Calloway throughout the book, but again doesn't explain who that is until one of the last chapters. That sort of thing happens multiple times throughout the book, and it left me reeling.

On the positive side: Bluestone is clearly extremely knowledgeable about all the details of the Fyre Festival debacle. I am truly impressed with her investigation and information-gathering. She spoke to an impressive number of insiders and seems to have tracked down every detail of Fyre Festival operator Billy McFarland's (many) schemes and scams. Frankly, I think she should have just written a forensic breakdown of McFarland's crimes instead of trying to say larger things about the internet as a whole.

Basically, the edition I read felt like a first draft. If someone handed me this manuscript, I would say, "There's probably a really solid book in there somewhere once you get it cleaned up." And maybe it will be vastly cleaned up before it's actually published! Maybe missing segues will be inserted so that it doesn't abruptly pivot from one topic to another. Maybe the conclusion is going to be expanded and fleshed-out. Maybe greater context will be provided. Of course the technical issues (which I'm not even addressing here) will be addressed by the copy editor. But the book as I experienced it was lackluster and undermined by a lack of editorial attention.

Clearly most of the other people who have read it and written reviews found it a lot more worthwhile than I did. I'm not discouraging anyone from reading it. In fact, I really may check it out from my library and see if I misjudged it. I would love to pick up the published edition, scan through it, and see that it's actually a good book. We'll see!