Human stupidity has been widely discussed in literature. The consumer society of the beginnings of capitalism began a particularly sensitive stage in this sense, in which people used to claim their freedom based on advertising slogans and lirics of the best-known musicians. Martin Page's novel was published when the true limits of social networks and the ability of their algorithms to determine and manipulate human behavior (in all its aspects) had not yet been fully implemented. And surely we still have more to see. Humanity chapters will follow with the evolution of artificial intelligence and possibly the eventual decline and death of human intelligence. So far, everyone more or less agrees.
Making a humorous work on this subject should not be very difficult, especially since it directly affects our everyday life and our most routine attitudes. But the Page's childish way is almost insulting. Reducing the process of the protagonist to a couple of absurd and poorly episodes (introduction to alcoholism and the suicide attempt) to derive everything to the consumption of a disinhibiting drug is frankly simple (in the worst sense of the word). And the jokes he incorporates into the process are so bad (I hope the translation is mostly to blame) that they end up burying the pace of the reading.
The ending, like any bad work, is rushed and bad, which does not deserve even a spoiler.
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