Solitaire

I love Alice Oseman, and I've started slowly reading through her novels after obsessively reading #Heartstopper so many times. For this one, I'd recommend reading Nick and Charlie's books first (though this was published originally near the first volume--this book contains spoilers for Vol 4 of "Heartstopper" and vice versa).

["In case you’re wondering, this is not a love story.

My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year – before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of A-Levels and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people – I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that’s all over now.

Now there’s Solitaire. And Michael Holden.

I don’t know what Solitaire are trying to do, and I don’t care about Michael Holden.
I really don’t."]

This book is called "the 'Catcher In The Rye' of the digital age." And I get it. The mental illness and the solitude and the weird side characters and the engaging in social norms to try to feel normal but hating it. It's similar. But without the enormous hatred I have for Holden Caulfield. Because I hate him, a lot (was supposed to read this book 2 or 3 separate times. Could never finish it. Sparknotes for the win there. 

Back to the first line of the blurb. "This is not a love story." I thought it meant maybe it wasn’t a love story because she doesn’t fall in love or that the romance plot wasn’t a major aspect of the novel as a whole. Or that she falls in love with herself. It’s all wrong. And she certainly doesn’t fall in love with herself; if anything, she falls more and more into hate with herself. 

This book didn’t trigger anything for me. If anything, I felt her need for isolation and desperation for her bed/computer and hate of change and guilt for things out of your control and disgust of people. Then again, I’m living with a mental illness, so that’s probably why. But I felt for her the entire book and didn’t understand why people kept telling her to snap out of it and just be happy already (like one, that’s not how it works; two, back the fuck off; three, maybe ask if she needs anything before you continually tell her how pessimistic she is, which they did, a lot). 

Anyway, lots of separate but connected rants all about this book. Tons of feelings really. Not sure if I touched on all of them. But do read it (keeping the below trigger warnings in mind). 

Trigger Warnings: self harm, suicide, suicide attempt, mental illnesses, eating disorders, bullying, homophobia, aggressive social norms, anarchy, etc

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