The Echo Chamber: John Boyne

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John Boyne has created an extreme example of a family who went too far, of a family that didn’t stop and look at where they were heading, but instead just ploughed on into a car-crash of circumstances. In this regard it reminded me a little of Matt Haig's work which always seems to aim to teach the reader an important moral lesson, as a reader I don't enjoy this method as I'm capable of drawing out the meaning of a book without having it gracelessly hammered home to me. The characters were spoiled and pampered, and behaved badly, but I couldn't help feeling some empathy for their escalating situations and naivety. The book follows the Cleverley family which is a very weird family and is certainly a dysfunctional one.

The Cleverley family are an extremely dysfunctional lot, there’s Dad George, (a BBC chat show host) his novelist wife Beverley, ( yes Beverley Cleverley! But George gets his wording very, very wrong and Twitter literally explodes, with the vitriol jumping off every form of media available. George and Beverley are at a crossroad in their relationship and also with their repugnant offspring. Nelson, the eldest, is a twenty-two teacher, a neurotic virgin, who is seeking help from therapists.

I think it was on track to be a good book and the writing is excellent as I have come to expect from John Boyne, the plotline is culturally relevant and it is naturally humorous without feeling as though the author is trying too hard but I thought the plotline was hammered home too heavily and the interspersion of tiny fragments of happy past family memories before social media only added to this. Boyne comments on good writing: Well, (according to cleverley beverley in conversation with her ghost) a novel must have good sentences that gather together to make fascinating paragraphs . It is not particularly funny, the characters are well drawn and you will know their likes/dislikes deeply.

What is so funny about being rented permanently brain damaged over night, and for so many losing our jobs, home, partners, life as we knew it? But George cannot stop expressing his views and, with mistake number three, he goes one step too far, referring to other sections of society in a-less-than PC manner.My 14th adult novel, ALL THE BROKEN PLACES, a sequel and companion novel to THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS, will be published in the UK on September 15th 2022, in the US and Canada on November 29th, and in many foreign language editions in late 2022 and 2023. However, I commend JB for taking on these issues as he is no stranger to tackling institutional abuse and social misconduct.

It makes some very pertinent points about the cynicism of things that are ‘leaked’ online designed to make a ‘name for yourself’ any which way, anyhow but then it becomes a pick and mix read with parts that make my eyes roll and not in a good way. The plot was literally all over the place, often leaving me feeling dissatisfied, and with every turn of the page, I felt irritation with the stupidity of the characters.

Seems he has drawn on his inner snarkiness to give us a tale about the ridiculous of our social media addicted society. It’s repeated so often that it gets wearing and I think some swipes are personal to the author rather than in a novel. It’s a satire about how phones and social media have created a society full of idiots, nasty trolls and attention-seekers.

And what an unexpected departure this is from the author’s previous novels, none of which prepared me for this complete change in style - and so much for the better, in my opinion.A fan of humor, this was by FAR the funniest book I've read and will definitely be reading it again. I feel the same as George about his producer, “Ben Bimbaum, whose full name George always struggled to pronounce. With the exception of Beverley and Nelson , social media plays a big role in these people’s lives, however they all suffer the brunt of it. To conclude my ramblings, this novel will appeal to some people more than others, depending on where you find yourself on the woke/outrage scale.