Book Review

All book reviews posted on the Selfishgenie Publishing blog page are the opinions of the reviewers, not those of the Selfishgenie management.

Help! My Tech Is Killing Me

I am something of a fan of Nick Spalding’s books. They are easy to read and easy to put down if you have to do something else. I don’t think that anyone will ever accuse Nick of writing great literature, but that doesn’t mean that his books aren’t enjoyable.
 
In fact, it’s because they are enjoyable that I read them.
 
Nick Spalding uses everyday life as his inspiration. His plots are centred on things that the reader can relate to and may have experienced. Not all of them, of course. I’ve never renovated a ramshackle old farmhouse, which was the subject of “Bricking It”, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it.
 
“Logging Off” takes a look at the way some people use the internet, to the point where it becomes detrimental to their health and mental wellbeing.

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Andy Bellows is a graphic designer who is somewhat internet obsessed. He has an app for everything, including going to the toilet. I don’t know if such an app exists, perhaps someone might like to tell me if it does. Not that I would ever use it.
 
Anyway, Andy’s obsession with his apps is causing him physical ill health and some of his physical symptoms are evidence of his poor mental health, induced by his internet behaviour.

On the advice of his doctor, Andy decides to undergo a “digital detox”, which requires him to give up all internet usage except for that essential to his work: no social media, no on-line shopping, no recording of his sleep patterns or his bowel movements and definitely no Googling of his medical symptoms. He can’t even use his apps to check the TV schedules.

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He packs his iPad, his games console and his phone into a box and hides it away.
 
Why he should give up his phone I found a bit puzzling. A phone is an essential tool and all Andy really had to do in order to conduct his detox was uninstall his apps. But at the same time, not having a phone becomes a plot point later on in the book, so even if it wasn’t necessary from a practical point of view, it was for the narrative.
 
Andy’s best (and possibly only) friend Fergus, a local newspaper editor, decides that what Andy needs to do to make sure he sticks with his detox, is to announce it to the world – in Fergus’s newspaper, of course. This sets the scene for a lot of anxiety for Andy later on, but I don’t want to give away too much, so I won’t tell you how.
 
But I can tell you that because of the newspaper article, for the first time in living memory Andy makes contact with a woman (two women actually) with romance in mind without the aid of digital match making. The outcome of at least one of those meetings is entirely predictable, so that isn’t a spoiler. The other is a little bit more bizarre, but I’ll let you find out how for yourself.
 
Being a Nick Spalding book there are misadventures aplenty, many of which Andy blames on his lack of technology but which I would blame on Andy himself, but I won’t go into those. But I’ll never look at a duck the same way again.

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The book is evenly paced with regular highs and lows. It is amusing rather than funny but, like many of Nick Spalding’s books, it left me thinking about the content and what it might mean for me.

​Is that stiff neck I suffer due to the amount of time I spend ‘on-line’ each day? Maybe it is. Maybe I need to think about doing a digital detox. Or maybe it’s just the power of suggestion.
 
Why only 4 stars? Really its because it isn’t absolutely the best book I’ve read so far this year. It isn’t even the best Nick Spalding book I’ve read this year. But it is enjoyable and I do recommend it. If you manage to get a holiday this year, it is the ideal fare for reading beside the swimming pool. I would recommend reading it on your phone or iPad, just so you can enjoy the irony.
 
To find out more about “Logging Off” by Nick Spalding, just click the cover image at the top of the page.
 
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