Fake Accounts

As someone who, during the firestorm of 202o, has been pulled into studying (from the outside) the fascinating and terrifying world of online conspiracy theories, I couldn't wait to read this book. Her boyfriend has a secret identity online, which makes no sense based on the world views she knows him to hold? Wow, I thought, I can't wait to see an exploration of the way social media conspiracy communities are performatively used by participants to fill a void in their IRL lives. It became apparent pretty quickly that is not what this book contained.

The writing is tongue in cheek and self-aware, with sardonic commentaries on millennial culture, internet profiles, online dating, honesty and fraud, but I must admit it didn't quite live up to my expectations. About 30 pages from the end, I kept asking, okay, but where is this going? There seemed no real plot, no critical problem, and even the most obvious issue for the protagonist, involving a lot of lies and a visa application, was resolved in a few pages. When I reached the last page, it was quickly obvious that the book is really just a very creative and scathing commentary on identity and the internet, so maybe it's my fault for expecting a plot about conspiracy theories.

I have to admit, I bookmarked a lot of pages because of hilarious and (sometimes worryingly relatable) quotes about the digital age. In that sense, the writing exceeded my expectations, if not the plot. If you like wit and cynicism, highly recommend just for the writing. For an in depth look at alt right theorists and their IRL lives, maybe look elsewhere.

Very perceptive and often very original and funny, with at least one genuinely surprising twist, though I did wish some of the disparate plot threads had jelled more. RIYL "Leaving the Atocha Station."

A timely novel about the way we disseminate disinformation, both online and in-person. Witty and funny, but at. times a bit forced.

What if you found out your seemingly lefty significant other was the force behind a popular far-right online conspiracy theory account? What if you found this out by snooping through their phone while they were in the shower? Would you confront them, or would you just cut your losses, dump them, and move on?

BUT THEN: What if the whole paradigm gets upended—again—before you can even make your move? Obviously you’d jump ship for Berlin to mourn and pick up the pieces, as Oyler's protagonist does here.

Fake Accounts is the bitingly funny, dripping-with-satire debut novel from the notoriously sharp critic and culture writer Lauren Oyler set firmly at the crossroads of the Instagram and Trump eras, a book reporting direct from the psyche of a generation raised both pre- and post-widespread internet—a generation that supposedly values authenticity but that also wrought, and continues to buy into, the social media machinery that corrupts the very notion. Complete with a bit about the warping influence of Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy and an all-knowing Greek chorus of ex-boyfriends. Pick this one up if you’re a Jia Tolentino fan. It's a read that will make you feel smart and edgy.

Incredible. Subversive, incredibly timely, and super smart. There is so much sharp critical thinking in this novel it blew me away. This will not be for everyone, but if you like Lauren Oyler's scathing literary criticism I would give it a shot. So good.

This was almost eerie to read because the commentary is so SPOT ON for what is happening in our current times. The writing style wasn't exactly to my taste, but that didn't take away from my enjoyment as the subject matter was so compelling.

I really like Lauren Oyler's reviews and essays, and so i was looking forward to her novel a great deal. She delivers.

A sharp, scathing look at a woman who discovers her boyfriend is running a secret online conspiracy account.

Oyler's novel is experimental in all the right ways (narrative structure, breaking the fourth wall, "plot") and is acutely timed as it offers discussions on the protests, neoliberalism, and contemporary writers all while tackling the theme of reality versus unreality. While all millennial fiction dives into the discussions of the self in the age of the internet, Oyler sets herself apart by acknowledging every nuance and making it her own in the most intellectual, subversive, and witty way. It's both chaotic and apathetic. The conversation surrounding media and who we are online versus who we are offline never gets boring.

This book energized me! I can't wait to recommend it to readers who enjoy Anna Weiner, Sally Rooney, and Melissa Broder.

Hugely entertaining, laugh-out-loud funny. Captures a mood and a moment better than any book I’ve read.

Fake Accounts is a demonstration in all things social media: colloquial, entertaining, and addictive. The narrator herself appears hyperaware to the concept of being perceived both in online and real life, testing the familiarity of what it means to get to know someone, even if it turns out they're an online conspiracy theorist. Diving into the digital is still not entirely Fake Account's intent, as it remains human without trying to moralize a space like the internet, emphasizing its default configuration being an infinite, impartial, doom-scroll of study, and I couldn't put it down.

This book was an impressive feat, wallowing in and savaging millennial malaise at the same time. It made me feel bad about myself, reading certain tendencies to filth in an incisive way. I could've highlighted most of the book.

A really enjoyable and funny book that occasionally brushes up against profundity. I look forward to what Oyler does next.

Meta, hilarious, and smart as hell, Fake Accounts is a refreshing read that cleverly unpacks internet culture and its inherent effects on present reality. This book radiates big brain energy in the best possible way, challenging the reader through its incisive social commentary rooted in a dissection of performance and facades.

The unnamed narrator secretly discovers that her boyfriend is a popular online right-wing conspiracy theorist, sparking an endlessly surprising fallout. Moving between New York and Berlin, the narrator sets off on a journey of apparent self-discovery yet quickly falls into the trappings of self-delusion, manifesting hilariously in a spree of dates using false personas according to archetypal astrological traits. While touted as a novel, and explicitly organized as such, it barely feels like one. It carries an unputdownable nature with its twisty plot yet is often operating in an almost essayistic manner throughout, with Oyler’s sharp criticism always on full display. For example, we get a takedown and parody of the trendy use of fragmentary structure in contemporary fiction. The narrator breaks the fourth wall and considers the manner in which her story is being told. She attends the Women’s March following Trump’s inauguration and questions performative activism. To top it all off, there is a chorus of ex-boyfriends that chimes in throughout. Finally, the ending is perfect, to put it simply (!!!).

This is a brilliant debut and I expect it to be one of the best books I read (and reread) this year. I cannot recommend it enough!

I am in love with Lauren Oyler's prose. This book had me jotting down quotes, laughing out loud, nodding emphatically, widening my eyes in sheer "you are master of sentence construction" wonderment...

Possibly my favorite quote which serves as an apt overview of "Fake Accounts": "At some point, you have to admit that doing things ironically can have very straightforward consequences."

Big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. This will be at the top of my favorites list for 2021.

Did you really, really like Fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s one-woman show turned BBC Three + Amazon series?

Do you miss the show’s irreverent, wry, hilarious commentary on feminism, dating, sex, and a desire for attention?

Read Fake Accounts.

If you haven’t seen Fleabag, not to worry! More extensive review to follow!

The premise for Fake Accounts is this:

The narrator finds out that her long-term boyfriend, who claims to not use social media, runs an anonymous conspiracy theory account on Instagram with over 10,000 followers. While this is the book’s launching off point, this conflict isn’t what the book is about. Rather, it’s about a woman exploring her relationships with the internet, people, and the world around her… With deception—both of self and others—along the way.

Oyler built her reputation as a book critic. In Fake Accounts, Oyler takes the critical lens that she has applied to specific books and applies it to millennials, social media, dating apps, books (more generally), podcasts, and being a 20-something, creative, liberal, white woman who lives in Brooklyn. The book begins just after the 2016 election.

As I read the ebook, I highlighted… a lot. In fact, I started making notes on top of the highlights (“hahaha,” “!!!!”) because I highlighted so much that the highlights had become less useful. I laughed often—a full-voiced laugh, the kind that usually doesn’t happen when reading quietly to oneself.

I highly recommend this book, particularly as a buddy read so that you have someone to discuss it with (and you’ll want to discuss it).

If you like a rambling story, this is for you. Given the description, I was surprised that most of the book wasn't plot driven, but I liked it just the same. The writing is well-done and the narrator kept me interested.

I always like tales of people adjusting to a new culture, and this was a really good one. I also appreciated the experimental (and possibly satirical) nature of the middle section. There is a lot to enjoy, particularly the tone, in this book. I didn't love the ending.

This book was completely fascinating and its writing for sure lives up to that striking cover.

It's 2016, specifically the day before Donald Trump is to be inaugurated, and our narrator has discovered that her boyfriend, Felix is a closet conspiracy theorist complete with his own super popular Instagram account. (PS. I checked and there is an account with the same name, but there aren't any posts, so I'm a bit disappointed at the publisher now for not being extra with their marketing.) Luckily, she was thinking about breaking up with him anyway, so this works out perfectly. Then here comes the twists, y'all.

Definitely loving this book title especially since my Insta was recently taken down by... fake accounts. Ba dum chhhh. 🥁

I'm such a fan of the vaguely unlikeable female protagonist these days. Our narrator is giving me some A Year of Rest and Relaxation's annoying vibes with a smidge of Milk Fed's neurosis thrown in there. Females do not have to be likeable and that includes 👏🏼 in 👏🏼 books 👏🏼 too.👏🏼

Loving the unique way this is written as a big old stream of consciousness. I felt like I was taken on such a mental ride, especially when she breaks the 4th wall (3rd wall? How many walls even are there?) and addresses the reader. There's also a group of ex-boyfriends that functions as a Greek chorus of sorts that makes for fun asides.

I want to talk about the themes in this book for days, but IG has a caption limit. Our narrator hates that her BF has lied and has a fake account. Yet, she so thoroughly curates her life online and bases her self-worth on engagement, that you also see that this is a form of fakeness too. Even when she goes to the Women's March in D.C., it's mainly to amass online content, not to really make a difference. What makes something real?

No spoilers here, my friends. But THAT ENDING though! 😱

Thanks to @netgalley for the opportunity to review this gem!

Lauren Oyler is a rising star in the literary world, and I can't wait to see how her career grows in the coming years. Her prose is clear, and her observations on internet culture and millennial ennui are cutting and precise. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a smart (if not escapist) read.

Oyler's novel "Fake Account" is clever and humorous. Since so many people engage in online dating, following social media, and engage in conversations about current conspiracy theories, it's easy to follow along on our unnamed narrator's journey with her rather nondescript boyfriend, Felix. Once he's out of the picture, we go on several unmemorable dates, and watch our narrator frolic around Berlin. At times the novel slows down as we meander into lengthy horoscopes for her dating profiles, what keeps you reading is that her narrative is engaging.
This is the kind of novel you can pick up, read for awhile, chuckle, take a walk, then pick it up again, and feel a bit more connected to something in this world, mainly because so much of the novel is about that feeling of disconnectedness, the constant need of searching the web for dates, tweets, info, something so many of us are plagued with during this damn pandemic. I can't say the ending was too surprising, so maybe Felix was right about that, but it needed to end, and that ending worked for me.

Snooping through someone’s phone usually turns up exactly what you’re expecting: innocent flirting, nothing at all, details of an affair. But when the narrator of Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts goes through her boyfriend’s phone, she’s shocked by what she finds. Ordinarily anti-social media, Felix not only is running a viral alt-right conspiracy theory account on Instagram but it’s clear that he’s constantly checking the app. Should the narrator even be surprised, though? After all, he’d had to come clean after they met that the person he said he was didn’t actually exist. And so begins Oyler’s wading into contemporary and millennial culture, exposing all of us for the cultivated brands we are (or try to be).

Set in the shadow of the 2016 election, Oyler provides a vivid picture of that contemporary culture down to how user interfaces of apps looked at the time the story was written. But as far as how the world outside an iPhone looked? The narrator doesn’t provide much because she isn’t aware of it herself. The story opens in Brooklyn, travels to DC for the Women’s March, and then Berlin but the narrator’s ability to be aware is limited only to self. Or at least how she’s perceived by other people (with extra attention paid to virtual over corporeal). Big events unfold around her and she interacts with them in a detached way we’ve come to experience most things in the age of COVID: filtered through a cell phone screen. Meeting new people in bars — organically, the way she’d originally met Felix — isn’t something one does. Instead, people need to be vetted and verified through dating apps connected with social media accounts because that’s supposed to give you a better idea of who the “real” person is. Or, who they wish they were. Even as the narrator tries on different personalities (that fit to different astrological signs), you can’t help but wonder if this isn’t just something that’s for fun, but a self-discovery journey that the narrator is worried about taking too seriously. It’s emotionally safer to be casually nihilistic than earnest.

Fake Accounts is a book with layers. On the surface, it’s easy to judge the narrator as being self-absorbed and feel some moral superiority. Digging deeper, both into the book and into the self, the book provides a reflection of our (millennials) worst qualities and asks what the hell we’re going to do about it. Can we really continue to fake it until we make it? The narrator certainly thinks (hopes) so.

Dark and funny, Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts is a great criticism of current popular culture.

A genius and compelling artistic stab at modern (American, German) life—dating life, especially—in the age of Trump and Tinder and heated sexual politics, <i>Fake Accounts</i> isn’t for everyone and maybe isn’t for most, but it certainly was for me. This tense, sardonic deep-dive into the uncertain head of a millennial woman living in the <i>now</i> is at times both rewarding and frustrating, searing and funny.

If you’ve ever wanted to run away to another country or pretend to be a different zodiac sign, this book is for you. I’ll be thinking of it for a long time.

Funny, smart, and edgy but, at times, a bit over-written. Oyler climbs deep into many rabbit holes, but some of those adventures read like she's showing off, not advancing the narrative or the characters.