Book Review: All the Lonely People by David Owen

Title: All the Lonely People
Author: David Owen
Publisher: Atom Books
Release date: 10th January 2019

Synopsis: Everyone tells Kat that her online personality - confident, funny, opinionated - isn't her true self. Kat knows otherwise. The internet is her only way to cope with a bad day, chat with friends who get all her references, make someone laugh. But when she becomes the target of an alt-right trolling campaign, she feels she has no option but to Escape, Quit, Disappear.

With her social media shut down, her website erased, her entire online identity void, Kat feels she has cut away her very core: without her virtual self, who is she?

She brought it on herself. Or so Wesley keeps telling himself as he dismantles Kat's world from across the classroom. It's different, seeing one of his victims in real life and not inside a computer screen - but he's in too far to back out now.

As soon as Kat disappears online, her physical body begins to fade and while everybody else forgets that she exists, Wesley realises he is the only one left who remembers her. Overcome by remorse for what he has done, Wesley resolves to stop her disappearing completely. It might just be the only way to save himself.

Review: I want to start this review with an apology. I was meant to post this review AGES ago and though that's when I read it I let life get in the way and dropped the ball on this review and my blog which is ironic in a weird way because that distance I was feeling is something that plays out in this book. I feel very seen by this book. Not least because the book came with a floppy disc attacked to the cover and that is just ageist marketing! 

Kat's life is torn apart by Wesley, for nothing more than kicks as he takes it upon himself to make her life feel worthless. A world that she doesn't want to be a part of and as a result she begins to fade from the world yet still remain a part of it. It is through this fade that she finds a new perspective and helps to rebuild herself.

Community has been an important aspect for a lot of us. It has been the way we have learn about ourselves and to build ourselves up. It is a support network and one especially recently that has been a god send, so it's very hard to imagine having to pull yourself away from that. Kat's online community was her world and for that to be torn apart broke my heart.

“I think this is why loneliness is a darker thing than just being alone. It’s a stillness that gives you a preview of death; it’s seeing the world carry on just fine without you in it.”

This quote chills me because of the reality of it. The world has moved online and in many ways has become how we define and validate ourselves and when you take that away it can feel very empty. It's  something that I've thought about a lot. 

As Kat fades she meets Safa who has also faded but seems more emblazoned by this, as if  shes enjoying the free will of it all. It reminded me of when i read The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North and how I wondered what I would do if people constantly forgot me. Though Safa brings this lightened playful energy to things there is an underlying darkness and you want them to fight. I enjoyed the development of their romance and that it wasn't completely explicit but it was the chance of something, a chance of hope. 

Entwined with this is Wesley's narrative, and his search for Kat ass he realises she is fading. You initially don't want to like him and his actions are not condone-able, but you learn to understand him and the lonliness he feels. Its one of those moments where you have to think, none of our feelings are isolated. As much as we might feel sad or alone, just because the other person isn't shouting out about it and is creating this perfect online visage doesn't mean they aren't feeling it too. It's something I have to check myself on a lot. I felt empathy with Wesley and his want to be a part of something. I get really bad fomo, I don't want to leave situation because of it and his fomo took him in a bad direction that's hard to pull away from. But he tried, that was the point. He took steps to make himself a better person and try and undo what he had done. It's not a hard thing to do and as we see comes with consequences, but he tried. 

Along the way he meets The Lonely People, a group wanting to reach the fade, which I'm sat here like REALLY! but then you have to go back to that feeling of loss and how everyone experiences things ever so differently. Whenever someone says 'you don't understand' over the years I've realised that what they're saying is technically true, I can only every understand things from my perspective. But this brings me back to community and how we build our circles and let them help us grow and understand the world from a new perspective and this is what we have here. They're not the friends you expect to make going into life but they;re the once's that have that affect. To quote wicked 'Because I knew you, I have been changed for good'

The end of the book did something unexpected for me, something that required strength and that was honest rather than tying up all the loose ends. It was how the real world works and though you kind of wanted everything to end up a ok it was touches like that that gave this book a reality that I liked.