skygiants

I'm very interested in fiction about the difference between public and private personas, and public and private relationships, and calculations about what makes sense to present for a camera/audience and how playing those roles impacts how you feel about them in reality! But that isn't at all what this book is; despite Ling Meng's early assumption that Mangosteen is playing their flirtation up for the fans, there really is no depiction of calculation or critical assessment here. Instead, the book seems to assume that we, the reader, would like to assume that really there is no difference at all -- that what's presented on camera is one hundred percent exactly what's going on in reality and the act of observation does not change the thing observed in any way.

Boo, I wouldn't like that. The chance of the book being about that is what made me go "ooh" when I started your review! Hank Green's An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is partly about that and it's one of my favourite things about it - but then he's also a Youtuber/internet famous person who can afford to discuss the gap between persona and reality.