(Not-So)-Mini-Review: We Had to Remove this Post by Hanna Bervoets, trans. Emma Rault

*This was meant to be a mini review, so it's set up in my usual mini review format, but it went a bit longer than I anticipated. Whoops!

We Had to Remove this Post by Hanna Bervoets, trans. Emma Rault
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication: May 24th, 2022

Hardcover. 160 pages.

About We Had to Remove this Post:

"Kayleigh needs money. That’s why she takes a job as a content moderator for a social media platform whose name she isn’t allowed to mention. Her job: reviewing offensive videos and pictures, rants and conspiracy theories, and deciding which need to be removed. It’s grueling work. Kayleigh and her colleagues spend all day watching horrors and hate on their screens, evaluating them with the platform’s ever-changing terms of service while a supervisor sits behind them, timing and scoring their assessments. Yet Kayleigh finds a group of friends, even a new love—and, somehow, the job starts to feel okay. 

But when her colleagues begin to break down; when Sigrid, her new girlfriend, grows increasingly distant and fragile; when her friends start espousing the very conspiracy theories they’re meant to be evaluating; Kayleigh begins to wonder if the job may be too much for them. She’s still totally fine, though—or is she?"

We Had to Remove this Post initially grabbed my eye because the main character, Kayleigh, works as a content moderator for a major social media, a job that I have also (unfortunately?) had. Kayleigh's job as a content moderator is to review content that has been flagged as potentially offensive or inappropriate and determine whether or not that is the case. At Kayleigh's job, she is inundated with constant hate, violence, and other terrible content, and it always seems to take its toll on the people working there. We Had to Remove this Post follows a snapshot of Kayleigh's life and relationships with her colleagues and how things seem to slowly devolve.

What I liked: We Had to Remove this Post was written in a very compelling way and I appreciated how the author explored this work experience via the format of Kayleigh writing to someone who wants her to join a class action lawsuit about the company. I also appreciated that although she discussed what the content moderation consisted of and mentioned a few examples, she never went into unnecessary detail or shared anything horrifying just for the shock value–there was always a purpose. This book provides a really fascinating and important look at the psychological pressures that are placed on the moderations from consistently viewing the horrible content that can be found online, and how those working to "protect" the rest of the world from it as moderators take on the burden of ingesting this content every day. As a previous content moderator, I think Bervoets captured this experience extremely well and the way the horror on the screen becomes its own sort of traumatic monotony. Bervoets depictions of the characters coping with what they see also felt very authentic and I think captured the relationships between each friend really well, and I think this really helped make this novella feel cohesive and compelling. 

What I didn't like: There's nothing that I truly disliked about this book. It has a rather low rating on Goodreads, which I noticed after finishing it, and while I would expect this not to be a book for everyone, I'm a bit perplexed as to why it's quite so low. I think the book leaves a little to be desired in the vein of closure and exploration of some characters, but I don't think it suffered from that, either. The only thing I probably would have appreciated is if this book was longer. I would've really liked to see more of Kayleigh's character arc and interactions with friends. That being said, I'm not really mad about the 160-page size of this novella because I think everything worked perfectly. You get just enough information and content that you need, and any more might just mess up that balance. 

Overall, I've given We Had to Remove this Post four stars! As you might have guessed, there is some difficult and disturbing content, so please do be aware of that going into. This was a really interesting and thoughtful look into social media, what we ingest daily, and how people are affected by the things they see–particular those who have to see the worst of it. 

Buy the book: Amazon | Bookshop.org

Review: Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko

Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko, trans. Julia Hersey

Harper Voyager, 2018

Hardcover. 416 pages.

About Vita Nostra:

"Our life is brief . . .

Sasha Samokhina has been accepted to the Institute of Special Technologies. 

Or, more precisely, she’s been chosen. 

Situated in a tiny village, she finds the students are bizarre, and the curriculum even more so. The books are impossible to read, the lessons obscure to the point of maddening, and the work refuses memorization. Using terror and coercion to keep the students in line, the school does not punish them for their transgressions and failures; instead, it is their families that pay a terrible price. Yet despite her fear, Sasha undergoes changes that defy the dictates of matter and time; experiences which are nothing she has ever dreamed of . . . and suddenly all she could ever want. 

A complex blend of adventure, magic, science, and philosophy that probes the mysteries of existence, filtered through a distinct Russian sensibility, this astonishing work of speculative fiction—brilliantly translated by Julia Meitov Hersey—is reminiscent of modern classics such as Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, Max Barry’s Lexicon, and Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale, but will transport them to a place far beyond those fantastical worlds."

Vita Nostra is an unassumingly ambitious novel with unpredictable developments that makes for a truly engrossing read. In all honestly, this review is probably going to be on the shorter side because I'm not entirely sure how to talk about it or explain it without going too deeply into the plot, something that I wanted to avoid as much as possible so as not to give away too much. This is absolutely a book that I think is best enjoyed when read without knowing more than the basics of the plot. 

This was a novel that genuinely felt unlike anything I've read in the past. There are some familiar core trope elements, such as a boarding school setting, but the story itself is so unconventional that it feels entirely its own. There are instructors that give the students a lot of work, there are some minor rivalries within the school, but it's the method of teaching and the way the students handle this 'education' that is what sets it apart and makes it such a compelling story.

I really liked how much we were able to get into the head of Sasha, the protagonist and the only POV that the story follows. Sasha undergoes so much internal stress, both emotionally-induced and school-induced, which is displayed in such a personal and open manner that I was able to have an extremely close connection to her character and understand her struggles and decisions. It was a compelling experience to follow along as she slowly learned more and more about what was happening while also navigating her attempts to maintain her familial and personal relationships. There are a few other characters that play prominent roles in the book that I also found myself extremely invested in and I'm impressed how well that authors created so many interesting characters. 

Another strong point of Vita Nostra was that the pacing was very steady throughout, and it was only in the latter middle half of the book that it seemed slightly slower than the rest of the book. However, this slower pacing almost acts as a plot/story enhancement in how it matches the mood of Sasha's current situation and the tone of the book perfectly. 

Vita Nostra is the sort of book that doesn't give the reader an overtly obvious plot destination to start with, which ended up being a major part of its charm for me. The reader is left just as unsure and in the dark as Sasha and the other students that end up at the Institute of Special Technologies. The authors crafted this setup masterfully and somehow managed to create a story that pulled me in almost immediately and left me glued to each and every page. There is a constant sense of foreboding, a mixture of hopelessness and desperate curiosity; this book feels like a masterpiece. It's an incredible addictive atmosphere that made me unable to stop thinking about this book and constantly want to learn more about everything that was going on.

 Overall, I can't help but give Vita Nostra five stars. I considered 4.75, but this book really went above and beyond for me and I feel it deserves that full five. 

Buy the book: Amazon | Book Depository | IndieBound