None of This Is Serious: Catherine Prasifka

Product Information

Prasifka has made several bold choices stylistically – some more effective than others. With the story told from Sophie’s point of view, the dialogue is made up of only what other characters say, leaving readers to fill in the gaps of her replies, which is unnecessarily confusing. The Fall of the House of Usher reference was a nice way to add more to the general feeling of unease about modern life too. I inhaled None of This Is Serious. I've been waiting for a fictional story that reflects the all-consuming influence that the Internet has on my life. None of This Is Serious is that story. A compulsively readable, fresh and painfully accurate description of the way we live now. Don't let the title fool you. It is serious. Seriously good." - Louise Nealon Catherine Prasifka, as it happens, is the sister-in-law of the author-who-shall-not-be-named. A standing ovation, then, to her and her publicity team for admirably resisting the temptation to ask Rooney for a blurb or even mentioning the connection in the marketing materials of Prasifka’s debut novel. None of This Is Serious is brilliant – so devastatingly precise about being a young woman living in Ireland and online today, moving deftly between sharp, hilarious observations and heartbreaking, enraging moments’

None of this is Serious | Catherine Prasifka - NetGalley None of this is Serious | Catherine Prasifka - NetGalley

An extraordinary novel. None of This Is Serious brilliantly explores the impossibility to "come of age" in end times, where screens are so contiguous to experience that no-one is ever truly online or offline. She writes truthfully and with affectless nuance about the labyrinthine workings of friend groups and the defences women scramble for in a world that still hates us’ I started reading None of This is Serious the morning after a night out and the hangxiety was real. This book was not only the perfect distraction – I literally couldn’t stop reading it, but it turned out that it was pretty fitting too for my hungover feeling right then. Grace enters the room and asks me to help her clear up. It takes a moment for me to understand what’s happening. Finn moves and releases me. I follow Grace into the kitchen, and she shakes her head at me. When I look over my shoulder, Finn is looking at his phone as though nothing’s happened, and perhaps it hasn’t. Certainly, our friendships say a great deal about who we are as people. Those with whom we keep company are reflections of ourselves. In this case, I think that Grace is a reflection of who Sophie is to herself. She is often times condescending, & rude, but is ultimately set on seeing something come of all the grunge that takes place on the daily. Grace is simultaneously someone who comes across as being ‘too much’ & ‘not enough’ which is fascinating given that every other character in this book fits snuggly into one only category. Sophie’s parents were never enough, they abandoned their child whilst she lived in their home. Every other member of Sophie’s friend group is too much themselves to be very much of anything for anyone else.The debaters Grace knows from college are exchanging proper nouns at a speed that makes me dizzy. Sentences lose their meaning. There’s someone arguing for free speech, and someone else explaining the difference between that and actively platforming someone. I hear the phrase ‘the marketplace of ideas’. One of them tries to engage me in conversation, I think to help bolster his point, but I haven’t been paying attention. Catherine Prasifka was born in Dublin in 1996. She studied English Literature at Trinity College Dublin and has an MLitt in Fantasy from the University of Glasgow. She has competed in both the European Debating Championships and the World Championships. She is obsessed with learning about how stories work and has ruined nearly all of her favourite books and movies by overanalyzing them. She works as a creative writing teacher in Dublin. None of This Is Serious is her first novel.

None of This Is Serious by Catherine Prasifka | Waterstones

I know, I know. It sounds like something we have heard before but this book offers so much more. The writing is so intimate from the first line to the very last. The book will dive the reader right into Sophie's mind, only seeing everything she is seeing and feeling everything she is feeling. We are not just seeing through her perspective, we are in her perspective. I have some criticisms about this book, but ultimately every single one of them can be rebuffed by the fact that we are seeing through this young woman's eyes. The decisions she made, the actions she took, the dread she felt—all of it just made her more real than many characters you will come across. I could totally relate to Sally Rooney’s protagonists even though I am a couple of years older. It was much harder for me to sympathise with Sophie as she is much too passive and has made herself comfortable in lamenting her situation without doing something against it. Her best friend accuses her of being selfish and arrogant, an opinion I would agree with. She is too self-involved to notice others and pathetically cries over and over again.

None of this is Serious is a celebration of just how wonderful the world is but also just how strange modern life can really be. Delving into the amazing truth of having worldwide connection at your fingertips - but the dangers that come with it too. The mental anguish that seeing polished, curated social media feeds can cause and of course how easily the internet can become a rumour mill. Dublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They’ve got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. She’s overshadowed by her best friend Grace. She’s been in love with Finn for as long as she’s known him. And she’s about to meet Rory, who's suddenly available to her online. We sit on the love seat in the corner of Grace’s sitting room. It’s cold inside, so I pull the blanket on the armrest over me. Without words, Finn grabs it too and gets under it with me. He pulls my legs over his lap. Personally, all these stories resonate with me and I really enjoy their niche genre. None of This is Serious is a wonderful addition to the group.

None of This Is Serious | Catherine Prasifka - NetGalley None of This Is Serious | Catherine Prasifka - NetGalley

I nod slowly and look her in the eyes to prove I’m unmoved by this information. The girl’s face is familiar; I’ve seen her pop up as a suggested friend more than once. ‘You’re not upset? Because you know he’s a pr**k, right? He’s a stupid pr**k, and I wouldn’t have invited him if I thought I could get away with it, but you know how these things are – it’s more trouble not to.’I adored this book. Sophie is an utterly relatable protagonist for anyone who’s ever found themselves in the grip of existential crisis or overwhelmed with anxiety and powerlessness about the big issues of our time. It also covered our modern obsession with social media and the online world. Grace is beside me, and I hear her whisper, ‘Pr**k.’ I take another crisp and let it go soggy in my mouth before chewing it.

None of This Is Serious by Catherine Prasifka review — a

I inhaled None of This Is Serious. I’ve been waiting for a fictional story that reflects the all-consuming influence that the Internet has on my life. None of This Is Serious is that story. A compulsively readable, fresh and painfully accurate description of the way we live now. Don’t let the title fool you. It is serious. Seriously good” Ultimately, this is not negative or positive, it simply is a style of presenting the extremities that exist within ourselves & within the world around us. When we are well-placed we find the world can be a kind place. When we are on the wrong foot, our heels snap & our bones are forever tender to a misstep. With every phrase this story crafts a tale as stark as the ripple in the sky over Ireland. Does anything matter when the world is coming to an end? Can we focus on any one particularly serious matter in hopes that it results in being more than it is? Isn't it weird to think that everything is so unstable? Like, we all believe in the magic of technology; it feels so permanent but, just like that, it's gone.” If I can’t think thoughts for myself, at least I can consume those of others, and regurgitate them if anyone asks. The album was released via Atlantic Records on vinyl, CD and cassette in the US, Germany and Japan, while WEA Records, S.A. released the album in Spain. [1] In 2006 Wounded Bird Records re-issued the album on CD, following the 2005 re-issue of Martin's debut album. [8] [9]An extraordinary novel. None of This Is Serious brilliantly explores the impossibility to “come of age” in end times, where screens are so contiguous to experience that no-one is ever truly online or offline. She writes truthfully and with affectless nuance about the labyrinthine workings of friend groups and the defences women scramble for in a world that still hates us” Amid the panic and meta-analysis about the panic, life continues, and eventually the news cycle moves on; “the apocalypse came and went”.