by Ali Smith
First published 2020
In the stifling heat of 2020, Sacha Greenwood watches her world contract. Locked down in her family home, she tracks the disintegrating social fabric through her smartphone and fractured family dynamics. Her mother's political activism, her brother's conspiracy theories, and the rising tide of national anxiety press against the walls of their suburban existence. As viral misinformation spreads faster than the coronavirus, Sacha discovers unexpected connections between personal history and collective trauma. Her search for meaning becomes a razor-sharp portrait of a generation suspended between digital connection and physical isolation.
Genres: contemporary, 21st-century, activism, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Sacha Greenwood
Period: 2020
400 pages · Paperback · Vintage
Content warnings: anxiety, depression, mental-illness