Title: None of This is Serious

Author: Catherine Prasifka

Genre: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Publisher: Canongate

Publication Date: 7th April 2022

Rating: 5/5

Cover:

Summary:

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.

Review:

The quote from Louise Nealon and the seriously aesthetically pleasing cover is what first made me extremely keen to read None Of This Is Serious and I can happily confirm it totally lived up to my high expectations. The story follows Sophie from Dublin, who is coming to the end of her time at university and finds herself feeling adrift. She feels her friends are leaving her behind and that her relationships are a disaster, and after a seismic event at a party she becomes even more obsessed with the online world and confused about her place in the real world.

None Of This Is Serious takes a magnifying glass of sorts and holds it up to the absurdity of modern life and the way young people especially have adapted to and perhaps become consumed by living their lives online. It is sharp, clever and candid and yet manages to also contain moments that feel so achingly sad and painfully relatable. This completely deserves to be one of the most talked about books of 2022. Full of insight, social complexities and brutally unflinching honesty – you don’t want to miss this one!

★★★★★

I kindly received a copy of the book from the publisher. My review is entirely my own honest opinion.