Review - 4 to 16 characters

 

4 to 16 Characters by Kelly Hourihan

Age range: Teen / YA 

Out: 23rd November 2013

 

 Fifteen year old Jane Shilling comes from a dysfunctional background. Her mother is dead and her father is an alcoholic. Above all, she is enrolled in a school for those who need a little more extra help. Having no 'real life' friends, Jane devises various online personas; each with a different life story, different name and their own set of friends. The most commonly used is Rachel; an attractive 27 year old female who writes fan fiction. 

thejanethe (3:27:11PM): Of course it is. Look, my home life is crappy, so I find a way out of it. It's sensible, not crazy. 

However, Jane soon finds that managing all these different persona's difficult when she is faced with Gary; a real life person who wants to be her friend or even perhaps more. With the help of her therapist, Jane slowly starts to delve into her issues and face them head on. It takes a long time and for most of it she fights it, but, when she takes a good look at her life she realises it's best to just be herself. 

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My rating: 5 out of 5

 

This book was provided as an ARC from NetGalley

 

When I picked up this book, I had thought from the blurb it sounded incredibly teenage and would probably be a quick read with no bite. I was completely mistaken.

 

Firstly, I would like to praise the author for the way the book is written; emails, blog posts, IM chats, forum posts and what I assume to be tumblr posts. The author paces it very well; there is a very interesting segment where she is talking to her offline friend Gary and an online friend at the same time. The reader feeels that rush when you have two important conversations running side by side, trying to deal with them and not show your emotions She wants to tell her online friend the truth, who she really is and on a few occasions slips or comes across as very cold. This is a huge turning point for her and it helps her to assess her situation.

 

While I don't write or read fanfiction, I know what it is. She masquerades as Rachel for this; a pretty college student with a boyfriend - who she calls "The boy" - has a perfect life with a Mom, Dad, sister and a dog. She keeps a folder on her computer to ensure she can keep up with all her different 'lifes'.  Rachel is well known in the Look to Tomorrow fan-fiction world; a fake show for the purpose of the book. While being Rachel she makes a new friend; Audra, another fanfiction writer who Rachel admires. They strike up a friendship in the online world, but all goes downhill when Rachel finds out that Audra has been taken to hospital.When Audra appears online once again she states that she did not tell her about it as she needed someone to understand and she did not believe the perfect Rachel would understand...  This causes a rollarcoster of emotions inside of Jane and she really starts to look at the web of stories she has created. 

 

Her other persona's, while not used as often at Rachel are still rather interesting.  Ethan, her Goth who has a very crazy back story; mixed with drug addiction and is dealing with his own sexuality. He is used by the Author when Jane is having her low periods, she goes elsewhere to write about her true feelings, again, supporting the idea that she can not deal with her issues herself. 

She then has the English-lit student, who is writing her dissertation. Jane uses this character when she wants to yell at random people at the internet and enjoys researching anyway; she calls her "bog-standard angry-feminist troll" which is pretty precise. 

Even though she is only used once; the slutty cheerleader! Who she uses to get even with an offline classmate. However, as Riversong says; Spoilers!

 

 I believe Jane's situation can apply to any sort of online activity which is why I feel the novel spoke so loudly to me. It took me back to my teenage days and I felt I was Jane, dealing with all these emails, IMs and the such! It was a great book at getting those emotions out and I will admit, I did get a little tear-y towards the end when she emails her dead mother.

 

There is no hiding that I highly enjoyed this book. Mixed with online references, using the different sorts of media.... the psychological side of things....I enjoyed every moment. I finished it in one sitting, just wanting to finish it; I even had to tell my partner to give me a few minutes (when I was at 98%) because he wanted to come to bed! 

Sadly, it is a book that I do feel not many will understand. When Jane is speaking to her therapist using IMs, I remembered when I was attempting to explain Secondlife to a University lecturer, while my lecturer did use emails, she did not understand the full extent of digital media. The issue is, if you are into all this, it's second nature. For most of us, especially if you are reading this review, you have used the internet for a long time. You know these references, you may not have experienced them all, but you most likely have had similar experiences. 

However, I am still going to recommend this book to everyone, as even if you don't know some of the terms or what fan fiction is, it may help you to learn what is going through a teenagers mind, especially when they are deeply addicted to the internet/the online world - in fact, I think I may be buying a copy for my old demon math teacher who like Janes never understood me! 

The book is not out until Novemeber, but, if you have Goodreads please add it to your to-read shelf!