The following contains spoilers for the book.
I wrote this book during a rough period in my life. In 2020 I was quarantined while I watched the world descend into chaos. Separated from my relationship and other activities, like everyone else I spent my time with Tiger King and The Floor is Lava. That quickly became tedious however and I decided to revive some of my dead hobbies.
I wanted to write a satirical young adult novel in the vein of the Hunger Games or Harry Potter, but focusing on real issues that I was dealing with at the time. I had noticed that the internet and real-life were beginning to merge in ways that were not always expected or even welcome. This became the setting for the book. I was surprised how easily the story came together and the words flowed out. The end result is something that is meant only for me and my strange sense of humor. If I were to describe it, I would say it's a mix of a Gillian Flynn style family mystery set in the Black Mirror universe. Contemporary parallels would be the movie Hater and the show Clickbait. My favorite books and stories have always been the ones with unlikeable anti-heros as protagonists, so you'll find a lot of that in this book.
After I completed the book I sent it to beta readers on Fivver who gave me some suggestions for improving it. I even purchased a fairly expensive editing package from a Fivver user. The narrator for the audiobook was likewise crowdsourced from auditions. I wanted the book to be a somewhat meta take on itself. I published it myself in December of 2020 & since then a lot has changed, but the subject matter still resonates with me. If I were to rewrite it today I would limit some of the science fiction and political elements and change the first few chapters. But overall I am more than satisfied with the end product and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Hopefully I will find the time to finish other projects in the future.
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