Ouch, the satire is sharp in this one!

We are introduced to the Cleverly family:
George is a successful TV presenter who considers himself a ‘National Treasure’, a liberal at heart, success and privilege has turned him into a narcissistic dinosaur.
Beverly once wrote a bestselling romance novel and now thinks giving ideas to a ghost writer makes her an author.
They have 3 children Nelson a socially inept teacher, Elizabeth an unemployed young adult whose self-worth is dependent on her social media status, and Achilles an indolent 17-year old who uses his charm and good-looks to black mail vulnerable men.

We follow the Cleverlys as they stumble through life lacking insight and empathy, concerned only with how their actions affect themselves. It is a theatre of horrors yet occasionally the author flashes back to their earlier life, pre-social media, when they were still a caring family.

In his previous books I have enjoyed John Boyne’s beautiful, flowing prose as he brings us an understanding of his flawed but likeable characters.
Here there is no one to love, except maybe Ustym Karmaliuk the tortoise, and yet the author still manages to create believable characters.
Mr Boyne uses his writing skills to appeal to our reason, not our hearts, as he mocks modern wokeness and the addiction to social media.

And among the broad strokes of satire and some truly appalling behavior we have a marvelous scene when George, surrounded by ‘woke’ colleagues berating him as he displays sincere regret for a particularly appalling remark, turns out to the only person in the room who understands just why the remark is considered so offensive. It is a not-so-gentle condemnation of the uninformed consensus of social media.
‘The POOTs . . . The Permanently Outraged of Twitter”

An entertaining, thought-provoking 4.5 stars worth.

Writing this book must have been a cathartic experience for the author who is no stranger to the occasional twitter spat. In this book he hits back at twitter trolls and is quite merciless in throwing barbs at the twitterati and woke culture in general. Even Harry and Meghan don't escape unscathed.
The humour is sharp and biting and I loved that about it. But the story is so farcical and over the top that I found myself needing to take a break from it as my head was in danger of completely melting. After half way through the book I had to stop and start reading it in chunks.
The Echo Chamber is as entertaining as it is completely mental. A fun read overall and a scathing commentary on today's social media culture for readers to reflect on.

This is a wonderfully biting satire encompassing social media, the devices that have taken over our lives and modern day thinking, skewed and distorted by influencers.
The Cleverly family, perhaps except for George, is unfailingly awful – insincere, manipulative, mean, delusional and bloody awful for the most part. They prance self-absorbedly around in this world-gone-mad, in which success is judged on the number of strangers willing to read their posts and likes equate to achievement.
Perhaps Boyne sums it up best when he has one of his characters say, “when you sign up for a… (social media) account and accept the terms and conditions, there should also be a warning attached: And this will make you miserable”
There are some hilariously funny parts, a mish-mash of highly improbable relationships and events and even a tortoise with an unpronounceable name. Boyne also weaves into the timeline of the story inserts about when (and how) various media, like Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok came into being.
This is a light, funny, easy to read book which goes way over the top to make its point.

The Echo Chamber features a deeply unappealing family whose life is upended by their addiction to celebrity culture and, in part, social media. George Cleverley is a smug TV interviewer and self-professed national treasure. His wife, Beverley, is a popular romance author who has ghosts write all her books. Their children are Nelson, an anxious fantasist, Elizabeth, who is obsessed with finding social media fame, and Achilles, who while still at school has used his charm to lucrative effect as a blackmailer.

They wend their way through the usual pop-culture targets – reality TV, influencers, affairs, anxiety, and as they each land themselves in ever deeper trouble, their stories cross over and loop back on one another. This comedy of errors element is perhaps the best thing about The Echo Chamber, highlighting the confined, narcissistic circle they move in.

Each family member has their own storyline, but the key one is an offensive tweet sent by George. It’s never quite clear whether George was thoughtless or deliberately set out to offend (although there was a conversation shortly before said tweet which leads the reader to infer he knew what he was doing).

The tweet sets off a whirlwind of offence and has a series of consequences. This combines with the various dramas of the other family members to bring the story to its climax.

The Echo Chamber is an easy-enough read but the targets feel too easy and predictable – woke Gen Z, oversexed reality stars, entitled BBC ‘talent’. There’s a recurring joke about young people not knowing any history which gets wearing. Some of the dialogue scenes go on far too long. The ending feels like a cop-out.

There are plenty of genre authors who have done a much better job of examining the nuances around social media, capturing both the absurdity and the dark, real-world consequences of public intrusion into private grief.

Literary authors tend to be slower to deliver their verdict on contemporary themes. What they lack in timeliness you expect them to make up for in originality and insight but that’s not much in evidence here. It’s more a mashup of a compendium of Dad jokes and the sidebar of shame on Mail Online.
*
I received a copy of The Echo Chamber from the publisher via Netgalley.

A brilliant book, well deserving five stars. I read The Echo Chamber in one sitting and enjoyed so much about this book. I found it laugh out loud funny, and loved spending time with the cast of characters. The story follows the downfall of the Cleverley family, and how these key events in their lives are unknowingly linked. As well as this, the narrative takes a satirical swipe at the culture surrounding us in modern society relating to social media, trolls on Twitter, the lure of the smartphone, the cancel culture, and everything that is Woke. The narrative is packed with intelligent observation on modern day life.

One of the cleverest, most relevant books to be published this year.

The novel starts on 4th February 2004 as George Cleverley waits with his two children, Nelson and Elizabeth as their mother, Beverley is giving birth to their brother, Achilles. It’s also the day that Mark Zuckerberg sent his first page of “The Facebook”.

Another fateful day for the Cleverley family. George along with his family are in Ireland to record his show “Cleverley” for St Patrick’s Day. Beverley becomes very weepy and tells him that she might be pregnant again. A disaster as Achilles birth almost killed her. George is nothing but caring. The date is 21 March 2006 – the day that Jack Dorsey sent his first tweet.

Nelson was being bullied at school. It took a long time for George and Beverley to discover what was going on but then they acted. They drove to the school and confronted the bully. The date again was significant, it was 16 July 2010 and Kevin Systrom sent a photograph via his Instagram account.

16 September 2011 and the family are coming to the end of a wonderful holiday in the USA when Beverley discovers that someone has said some nasty things to her daughter, Elizabeth. She retaliates and lands in jail for the night – but the date is significant because it’s the day that Snapchat goes live.

We follow the family throughout this book as each one gets their “one-up pence” in one form or another. George is the star of a show simply called Cleverley. Beverley an author who is too lazy to write herself so uses a ghostwriter. Elizabeth tries to be “woke” and “with-it” but has a dark side to her. Nelson can’t leave the house unless he’s dressed in some sort of disguise and Achilles preys on men. They’re very rich and think that they are privileged – that is – until it all comes tumbling down around them.

John Boyne is a brilliant author. This book is genius by showing how all our lives changed on days that saw us introduced to new ways to communicate. I truly loved it.

The novel opens with a quote that I must share – hopefully, it will lead you to purchase this remarkable piece of literature. “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community. Then they were quickly silenced, but now they have the right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It’s the invasion of the idiots. “Umberto Eco.

Rony

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review.

John Boyne has done it again and written a book that in my humble opinion was utterly magnificent, I loved everything about this book from the story itself to the characters, Fantastic.

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author.
I am a big fan of John Boyne's writing and there is no doubt that he is a master storyteller.
The Echo Chamber was involving and engaging, and I sped through it with interest. It covers many of the facets and elements of 'wokeness' and the difficulties with political correctness, all illustrated to the extreme through the Cleverly family. Above all, it is a critique of modern culture with a satirical twist.
A strange one for sure. 3 stars.

A complete change in style for John Boyne for his latest book.
This time he has penned a sharp, modern-day satire centred on the privileged and downright awful Cleverley family.
George, a tv interviewer long out of touch with modern views, is married to Elizabeth, a famous airport book author, who now uses ghost writers to churn out her material. Their three children Nelson, Elizabeth and Achilles are very much entangled in today’s social issues, including gender definition and use of social media.
The book is very current indeed, set in Covid times, addressing many pertinent issues but I found it rather an uncomfortable read.
I have been a big John Boyne fan for a long time and he writes with flowing plot and dialogue, as always. However, I enjoyed his previous books, such as the The Heart’s Invisible Furies much more.
Many thanks to Penguin Tandem House UK and Netgalley for a free ARC copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Another good John Boyne book that I enjoyed. I love how he writes about characters. It's very gripping and well written.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this one; it's an easy going read but the humour and emotion were lacking for me. It had a taste of cheap laughs and none of the characters really came alive. Hard work, but a simple enough read.

I say this often enough, and most of the time, the emphasis is clear, but this time around, I need to iterate how that book should not have worked for me. For fear of sounding like one of the Cleverly family dissected within its pages, I wrote and deleted yet another sentence starting with 'I'.
The odd characters that comprise the Cleverly family are not likeable in the least. Some of them have vague moments where they could be classified under an average person, but for the most part, they are atrocious in their self-love and their understanding of themselves. There have been numerous times I have found it hard to finish a book or favourably view one if I cannot find it in me to empathize with anyone in the book. This time around, the satire had me gasping at how much I was enjoying the read.
This is not a complicated narrative, except for maybe the dancer who appeared in way too many segues. The Cleverly family are rich, famous and each member has a way to pass their day to their satisfaction. It would be a disservice to the book to elaborate on anyone's predilections. It was the highlight of the book to walk through their chaotic minds. Each one has a unique voice, even if they have similar failings to the point of echoing each other's baser sentiments.
Although I have heard of the author before, this is the first of his books that I have had the opportunity to read. If he could turn such annoying people into a delightful (if even a little introspective) read, I look forward to his more popular books. I highly recommend this to fans of satire.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

This latest book from John Boyne, The Echo Chamber, is hugely entertaining but also, I believe, written with a clear message within. It is unlike previous books by this author that I have read. It features the Cleverley family and how they live their privileged lives while at the same time, documenting and sharing their escapades on social media. At times hilarious and always thought provoking, it describes the obsessive preoccupation some people have for relating their experiences to the world while castigating and shaming others whom they perceive to have been offensive.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. My thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for the complimentary copy of the book.

I thought this was hilarious – a real laugh-out-loud treat. I had no idea John Boyne could be so funny. It’s not a gentle humour, mind. Quite the contrary. It’s an angry, scathing, deliberately provocative and completely on-the-nose humour, a quite vicious skewering of social media and cancel culture, Poots (Permanently Outraged of Twitter”, virtue signalling, “the invasion of the idiots”, and the damage that can be caused by social media’s instant outrage at anything, anything at all, that can be deemed in any way offensive. Frighteningly astute and insightful. The Cleverley family are at the heart (although that’s perhaps not quite the appropriate word here) of the novel, headed up by George, a 60-year-old high-profile talk show host who blunders his way through life managing to say the “wrong” thing at every possible opportunity. His wife, a celebrity writer, and his 3 children, as well as George himself, are truly awful people, but we’re not expected to like them. They’re there for Boyne to put forward his agenda, his argument about the absurdities and vitriol that social media often gives rise to. And which he experienced at first hand after the publication of an earlier book. I wonder if this is a novel that appeals more to older readers, who grew up in a world without social media and perhaps are more aware of the damage it can do. Some younger people probably take this world for granted and possibly see nothing wrong in extreme reactions and instant hate campaigns. The book is farcical and outrageous, with overblown characters and crazy situations and is a full-frontal attack on being Woke, on Wokesters, as George calls them, on political correctness gone mad, a world where outrage is sadly the reaction to just about everything. And it’s very, very funny.

I almost gave up because this book didn’t capture my attention till quite a way in. Unfortunately I never got to the point where I really enjoyed either the characters or the plot.

The Cleverley family, headed by George, a self declared "national treasure" with an interview show on TV, Beverley, a successful author and their three children, Nelson, Elizabeth and Achilles, are the focus of this latest novel by John Boyne. Each despicable in their own way, they find themselves in trouble, thanks to social media and the internet.

I'm a fan of Boyne, having thoroughly enjoyed everything I've read of his so far. This satirical take on political correctness, keyboard warriors and the role of social media however, proved to be the exception. It was amusing in places and a lot of the observations were completely accurate. However, whilst I could see what the author was going for, parts of this just felt overly, and unnecessarily mean spirited. Others may enjoy this more than I did, but sadly, it just didn't quite land for me.

Dear lord what an unsavoury bunch a lot of the characters are in this book, shady, shocking, hillarious, rude ooft so so many words where to start. Meet the Cleverley family, George father and beloved tv personality with the BBC, Beverley his wife is a novelist snob and a firm believer in staff knowing their place. They have three grown children, Nelson the eldest is a teacher and socially awkward but working through it with a therapist and uniforms. Elizabeth is a spoilt brat who cares more about social media presence than pretty much anything else. Achilles is the baby, seventeen and at school, beautiful, gift of the gab and very aware how much he can get out of his looks. The book follows each of the characters and what is happening in their lives and the impact of actions and consequences.

I cringed so so many times at scenes in this book, sometimes I laughed out loud, shook my head, gasped, got enraged. The book looks at so many themes and issues, how we as a society are tied up with social media, our phones, our public personas. The book looks at homophobia, transphobia, racism, being pc and I think by making the characters such extremes of what they are it punches it through. Even in these times people behave appallingly but often think they can get away with it because of who they are or "it is just an opinion" or hide behind a computer screen. Whilst there is a lot of humour laced throughout there are some very serious messages/lessons in the book.

I do enjoy Boyne's writing, I have read a few of his books and find even if the characters are loveable or you loathe them you can sink into their world and loose yourself for a few hours. Prepare for some entitled self involved shady cheating unlikable characters - I sometimes find books with horrid people are often then ones you end up glued to, they said WHAT?!?!?! 4/5 for me this time.

This has to be one of the more unique reads of this year so far. I don't think I have ever read a novel that focuses this intently on social media, cancel culture, and its many complications so at the very least, this was an impactful and fresh story through and through.

I absolutely adored John Boyne's 'The Hearts Invisible Furies' so I don't need much convincing to pick up another one of his works. The Echo Chamber follows a dysfunctional (at best) but ultimately toxic family through their individual fumblings regarding the social media landscape. In true John Boyne fashion, I was highly entertained by the quick but unusual banter between characters and was continually impressed by his ability to make each storyline he illustrates come full circle, in one way or another.

However, I ultimately didn't find myself loving this story as much as some of his past = I needed a little more heart or nuance from at least some of the family to truly be invested in their antics. The beginning was slow and although it picked up, I still don't feel any one story arc felt satisfactory or complete. None the less, I am happy I had the chance to read it and will pick up more from Boyne soon!

Loved this read, couldnt put the book down, loved the twists the characters and the story line. great ending.

I read the Echo Chamber with a smile on my face from the opening sentence to the closing line. Boyne has created a tongue in cheek examination of the 21st century's obsession with being 'relevant' and having a sense of fulfilment derived from how others perceive you. What could have become a quickly cliched narrative is deftly steered by Boyne through popular culture as you follow the unravelling lives of George Cleverley and his dysfunctional family. None of the family members display any degree of authenticity, preferring to hide behind a carefully crafted charade of their ideal self in a world that no longer prizes the prestige that 'aristocracy' previously enjoyed.
The neat self-implosion at the denouement of the book is beautifully drawn and masterfully ties all the narrative pathways together in ultimate 'cancellation'.