OnlineBookClub.org

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "CyberDayze" by Gina Davis.]

CyberDayze by Gina Davis is, as the author puts it, a “Work of creative non-fiction”. It is a standalone novel and suitable for adults, due to some erotic content.

The story details bits in the life of the author, so even though she has changed some names to protect identities, it is still a type of autobiographical fiction and a depiction of certain events leading to a life change for her. Specifics in the story range from traumatic and good points in her childhood, her relationships with family and friends, her love of music, her depression and manic highs, and her unhappy marriage. The book is written partly as recollections and partly as copies of the Facebook messages she and others used for communication.

The story itself is actually quite a difficult read, both in its context and the way in which it was written. The chapters range from one to several pages, with a number of pictures interspersed, so the flow chops and changes constantly. Different fonts are used for different speeches, so some parts about her past are written in an easy to read font, while the Facebook messages are in bold italics, which gave me eye strain and I had to take a lot of breaks while reading. The language of the messages uses a lot of “text speak”, so unless the reader is comfortable with LIT, or GG, or BTB, you find yourself going back to the explanations in the beginning. There are a lot of intentional spelling errors because of this, and when the author is going through one of her bipolar highs she rants without commas, and sometimes has no spaces between words. This creates long sentences without recognisable words that take time to unravel and break the flow of comfortable reading.

What I did enjoy about the book was the frank look at the cyberworld. It reiterated how easily you could hide behind different personas/Facebook accounts and just as easily be hacked and stalked by someone with superior technological knowledge. Without the face to face contact the author showed how inhibitions can take a back seat and that people become bolder in expressing their desires. She found herself in a situation where she craved the “power” she could have over someone in a sexual way, and when it threatened to spill over into real life she had to choose between following through on her promises or doing what was constrained by her marriage vows. The psychological aspect of the harm that “living” in cyberspace, or being as addicted to correspondence as she was, could also make for interesting counselling sessions and shouldn’t be swept aside as “just a little chat with a friend”.

The book ultimately chronicles the reasons she felt justified in doing what she wanted, and in the end actually helped her to take the steps she needed to break away from a caustic marriage. She was very cavalier in her approach and while a lot of it came across as narcissistic, I definitely caught glimpses of why she did it. I rate CyberDayze 2 out of 4 stars and would recommend it for adults only, due to some of the more intense themes and conversations. One star was taken away for the difficult way in which the story was written, and the other for the story itself, as I had to push myself to finish the book and didn’t feel it really had an impact on me.

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CyberDayze
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This almost sounds like it's written more for the author than the readers. I don't think I'd enjoy it, so I'm going to skip it. Thanks for the information, though. It helped form my opinion.

Well, with intentional errors, it seems that the only thing the book would have become, difficult to read. I would let this book pass. I may not be perfect in grammar, but anyone who makes such mistakes intentionally should not have a place in the literary world.

Paul78 wrote: ↑15 Jan 2018, 10:50 Well, with intentional errors, it seems that the only thing the book would have become, difficult to read. I would let this book pass. I may not be perfect in grammar, but anyone who makes such mistakes intentionally should not have a place in the literary world.

While I agree that this book sounds like a hard pass (this is the kind of book written for the author more than for the reader, in my opinion), I do have to disagree with your position that no writer who uses intentional grammatical errors deserves a place in literature. I would point you to Joyce, Faulkner, Thompson, and Kerouac as counter-examples to your argument. Intentional mistakes can convey a range of emotion and divide straight narration from stream-of-conscience. It just sounds like this book in particular failed to live up to its own ambitions.

The book has great potential but I'm quite uncomfortable with the idea of using private Facebook messages in a book.

Thanks for the review, that is a shame that you got these impressions of the book when the topic is actually very interesting to explore.

Gunnar Ohberg wrote: ↑17 Jan 2018, 16:36

Paul78 wrote: ↑15 Jan 2018, 10:50 Well, with intentional errors, it seems that the only thing the book would have become, difficult to read. I would let this book pass. I may not be perfect in grammar, but anyone who makes such mistakes intentionally should not have a place in the literary world.

I do have to disagree with your position that no writer who uses intentional grammatical errors deserves a place in literature. I would point you to Joyce, Faulkner, Thompson, and Kerouac as counter-examples to your argument. Intentional mistakes can convey a range of emotion and divide straight narration from stream-of-conscience.

I agree and have to admit that I have struggled with a couple of books that I have reviewed. In those cases, it is obvious that the author is writing dialogue using vernacular phrases as a way to give an authentic voice to the character. However, those should be technically counted as errors due to poor grammar. While these authors aren't at the level of those you mention, I have come across several with a interesting story to tell. In such cases, I try to assess the author's intent in their use of language in trying to come to a fair rating.