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In this book, readers meet Strobe Witherspoon, a terribly dressed radical and literary provocateur with a complex personal history. After a leaked chapter of Strobe's latest sensation, a novel titled FLOTUS: A Memoir, the formation of the Online Outrage Fiesta leads to his societal persecution. Readers become investigators searching for evidence of Strobe's guilt in transcripts of slang-filled tweets, scrapped-together vlogs, seemingly disorganized podcasts, and even personal interviews with members of his own family. As readers determine Strobe's innocence or guilt, his intentional or unintentional interpretations and actions, they traverse the wide yet closed circles of human rationale (or lack of) and the lightning speed at which a person's reputation can be destroyed with only a few shares, clicks, and likes.
The events in this book read like headlines straight from a current day's morning paper. In its critical examination of censorship and social media's endless influence, this Vonnegut-like book questions the true intent of users' engagement on mass communications platforms and the platforms' ability to reshape society. Most memorably, this book reminds readers that "Bias never dies; it just convinces you that it doesn't exist." Its rebelliousness and examination of how social media's latest trends can easily dupe the masses will lead readers to enjoy the book's humor-fused sociological questioning. Those interested in portrayals of what the book's narrator calls "the low art of chronicling human stupidity" will not be able to put this book down. Fans of works like Dear Committee Members will immediately find a new favorite in this book, as well as a new type of unlikely hero in Strobe Witherspoon.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review of Books