I’ve never read something like this before, I loved it! The fragmented snippets into the protagonists life did take some getting used to but I loved the witty, insightful, cutting commentary. There’s a lot to dissect considering it’s so short and the author really makes it so every line is important and vital. Information Age really captures the ephemeral, often crazy nature of your 20’s without it feeling overdone or contrived and I’m sure every 20 year old can see themselves in this book - I certainly did! Considering we dont even know the protagonists name or age, it’s easy to connect and empathise with her which just goes to show how compelling and well-written Information Age is.

A snappy tale of life in New York as a woman in your twenties through bite sized paragraphs.

The unnamed protagonist charts her daily life as a online reporter in the 2010s of America, Mirroring her own work life of reporting in vignettes and short news cycles, she charts conversations with her lovers, parents and friends.

Often times it is both amusing and sorrowful.

An overall easily engaging read,

A novella rendered in first person, our narrator, a journalist with an online media portal takes us through her life in little tit bits, byte sized information packages on her work life and personal life. As she reports news and writes about tech, climate change, nature, she has many an upheaval on the personal front to tackle - with her family, friends, partners, men she casually dates and has flings with, her wanting to become a mother, her abortion, breakup with her long time partner, getting along with him again as if life couldn't have been better with another man only to part ways forever again, remaining as buddies for life, even losing her job in between with worries of how she would get money to manage her healthcare and rent.

In this novella, the personal and public life blur into each other ; there are no clear margins separating them. The biggest niggle with the book - that there is a lot about giving vent to your personal wants, largely sexual desires, finding a partner who loves you the way you want to and thrills and chills associated with becoming a mother or being unable to become one. There is lots of sex, lots of making love and sweet nothings that fill the slim book which portray nothing about the job demands of a journalist, why they choose a certain way of life devoid of morals or limits as shown in this book. It could be an individual from any profession, why one from the newsroom or a writer for an online paper - the professional is only a measly backdrop to the personal that is fully chaotic. That is where the book failed me completely though the writing in a pared down style, as a collection of vignette was refreshingly different.

I love works like this that are just fragmented glimpses into the character’s world.

Here the narrator is a journalist in her 20s struggling to find meaning at her online news job - the input and output of information is overwhelming, especially as a writer who knows how slower developing stories will be left in the wake of a viral controversy. This book is gorgeously written and through the series of vignettes we see real human connection, love, disappointment, difficulties— it’s messy and joyful and digitized 📱

Information Age by Cora Lewis is the type of book that I really enjoy - a collage of vignettes that are little slices of daily life told in a thoroughly engaging and intimate but stripped back way. I think fans of Sheila Heti will appreciate it.