Norwegian title: Ser du dette?
Hi friends!
I’ve been very MIA the last couple of weeks for which I’m sorry! There has been so much going on with my master thesis, job applications, and work. Therefore I decided to read a shorter book which comes very much recommended from my fellow bookbloggers. After reading this I can’t believe that this book is a debut book! I’m so impressed by this author and what she has accomplished to compose with only 140 pages. This review was hard to write because I don’t want to spoil you readers so please excuse me if the review feels strange at times, haha. The synopsis is borrowed from Goodreads and translated by me:
Anna has moved to a new place but a rumor can move faster than a car can drive. The rumor doesn’t care about distance, speed or itinerary. A rumor just wants to spread to as many people as possible.
Anna has run away from a rumor. She needs to start over. A new school and new friends. How can she cope with her new life when she constantly fears that her past will be revealed?
Do You See This? is the kind of story that makes me question having kids in this era. It is a painful story of abused trust that gets enormous consequences and how it scars you for life. Whilst reading this I thought about how many others like Anna there is out there, who doesn’t have parents or others who can help, and who gets a very different fate than Anna. This is the kind of story that should be read by everyone from adolescents to grown-ups with or without kids. This book bring forward a very present, and more and more pressing, topic in the midst of this modern era of technology. I believe we need more books like this for the younger generation, and maybe also for us older people unless we read books like this, to read because not everybody are aware of the many dangers lingering online. I know I sound like I’m 90 years old and are preaching to an unaware crowd about the dangers of internet when I barely know 2% of these possible dangers myself but I believe that if more people talk about topics like this then people will become more educated. We’ve seen it in the media lately with famous people speaking out about bullying, low self esteem, and difficult thoughts where the internet feeds this sort of behavior in a negative way. I think the short and simple conclusion should be: More books like this one please!
Our main character is Anna who is 15 and has experienced something nobody her age, or others, should have to experience, ever. I think Anna portrays the image of many teenagers out there. Teenagers who has had their trust taken away and their heart broken because they trusted the wrong person with the wrong content on their phones. I felt for Anna so much and yet I feel that she’s handling everything quite well. I don’t think I would have kept it all together so well. Even though Anna presents a somewhat collected external nature her insides is in turmoil and how the author has described the differences between Anna’s inside and outside appearances is very well executed! I feel that this is what truly makes the character of Anna so wholesome as a main character. Anna’s most problematic feeling is shame and this is something we know a lot of people struggles with in the aftermath of such a traumatic experience as the one Anna has been through. I believe we could discuss to and fro the why, the how, and the if’s but I think one of the constant things about shame is that you live with it until you face it, whether it is your fault or not, and figure out how to live with it and/or accept it. I really appreciate the way Hansen portrays this shame that Anna is carrying around with her. As previously mentioned, I feel that a lot of people can see themselves in Anna and her feelings and this description makes me automatically connect with this character on a different level. I haven’t experienced the same type of shame but it has made me think about this topic in a very different manner than what I did earlier.
Do You See This? is a novel I strongly recommend everybody from adolescents to grown-ups to read. It is a strong story about what social media can do to youngsters and what damage it can cause if we don’t prepare people for the possible traps. Read it – love it – learn from it!
Published: 2020
Genre: Young Adult
Theme: Social media, new beginnings, trauma
-The Book Reader
TheBookReader 