Going Viral: A Socially Distant Love Story by Katie Cicatelli-KucMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Finished on July 24, 2021
Favorite Scene/Quote: "I feel annoyed all over again. Annoyed that these Internet strangers aren't satisfied with what I gave them, annoyed that I know that they're right. Annoyed that I'm letting them get to me, and especially annoyed that I gave in to their requests."
4.5/5 rounded down
A sapphic story during COVID quarantine with a hint of misunderstandings. I was hooked by this description. I had some initial wariness about possibly hating the COVID part of the story, but it turned out to not really bother me. I was lucky enough to be sent an uncorrected ARC from Scholastic in exchange for a fair and honest review.
This book takes place during COVID-19. Claire is at school when her principal informs everyone that, due to the pandemic, they will be moving to online schooling effective immediately. She’s stunned for the day and, while trying to find something else to focus on, she takes to writing about the girl in the fire escape across from her. Her story goes viral online and she finds that she’s no longer able to clearly separate fact and fiction.
I absolutely loved how this story was laid out. For the most part it’s set up where one chapter is Claire’s life, and the next chapter is Clarissa’s (Claire’s) posts on Babble. It was a great way to separate real life from Claire’s experiences with Sadie.
This book was much more than I expected in a couple of ways. The biggest one for me was how it showed COVID. These were teenagers and adults in a big city who were, at least in the case of Claire and her mom, freaked out. I didn’t expect for the story to showcase the annoying effects of COVID lockdown and the various ways that people were choosing to cope. It had Claire become randomly angry at small things and have bad days, things I remember experiencing when lockdown was first happening. I thought it was excellently done and it really helped. I had some initial issues when I couldn’t relate to their lockdown experience at first, but it eventually worked better for me.
Another thing that really stood out to me was the people and relationships. I loved the relationship built between the various people. Everyone in this book was written very realistically, even if at first it didn’t seem like it. No one was portrayed as perfect or horrible. Everyone was their own various shades of grey and it led to really authentic relationships between all the characters. I also don’t think there was a single character we saw that I didn’t like. Even relationships with people we didn’t see felt authentic. Mainly with Claire’s Babble followers and their increasing investment and pushiness into her life as she posts more and more. It was built up really well and portrayed a toxic attitude that a lot of people have online.
I really only had a couple issues. Because I have an uncorrected proof there were a couple of typos and errors, but not many. My other issue was that it took a bit to really get into the swing of the story. It wasn’t a pacing issue; it just took a bit to really hit its stride.
This book was much better than I could have hoped for. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who wants a good read about quarantine that’s not quite a love story.
4.5/5 rounded down
A sapphic story during COVID quarantine with a hint of misunderstandings. I was hooked by this description. I had some initial wariness about possibly hating the COVID part of the story, but it turned out to not really bother me. I was lucky enough to be sent an uncorrected ARC from Scholastic in exchange for a fair and honest review.
This book takes place during COVID-19. Claire is at school when her principal informs everyone that, due to the pandemic, they will be moving to online schooling effective immediately. She’s stunned for the day and, while trying to find something else to focus on, she takes to writing about the girl in the fire escape across from her. Her story goes viral online and she finds that she’s no longer able to clearly separate fact and fiction.
I absolutely loved how this story was laid out. For the most part it’s set up where one chapter is Claire’s life, and the next chapter is Clarissa’s (Claire’s) posts on Babble. It was a great way to separate real life from Claire’s experiences with Sadie.
This book was much more than I expected in a couple of ways. The biggest one for me was how it showed COVID. These were teenagers and adults in a big city who were, at least in the case of Claire and her mom, freaked out. I didn’t expect for the story to showcase the annoying effects of COVID lockdown and the various ways that people were choosing to cope. It had Claire become randomly angry at small things and have bad days, things I remember experiencing when lockdown was first happening. I thought it was excellently done and it really helped. I had some initial issues when I couldn’t relate to their lockdown experience at first, but it eventually worked better for me.
Another thing that really stood out to me was the people and relationships. I loved the relationship built between the various people. Everyone in this book was written very realistically, even if at first it didn’t seem like it. No one was portrayed as perfect or horrible. Everyone was their own various shades of grey and it led to really authentic relationships between all the characters. I also don’t think there was a single character we saw that I didn’t like. Even relationships with people we didn’t see felt authentic. Mainly with Claire’s Babble followers and their increasing investment and pushiness into her life as she posts more and more. It was built up really well and portrayed a toxic attitude that a lot of people have online.
I really only had a couple issues. Because I have an uncorrected proof there were a couple of typos and errors, but not many. My other issue was that it took a bit to really get into the swing of the story. It wasn’t a pacing issue; it just took a bit to really hit its stride.
This book was much better than I could have hoped for. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who wants a good read about quarantine that’s not quite a love story.
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