Title: Is This Ok? One Woman’s Search for Connection Online

Author: Harriet Gibsone

Genre: Memoir

From the outset of her vulnerable adolescent years, Harriet Gibsone is slowly enmeshed into the dark intricacies of the internet and social media. Relatable to millennials (such as myself), Gibsone takes the reader by the hand and guides them through a tour that spans from the murky waters of teenage insecurity in the late 90s to early 2000s, with the dangerous (and exhilarating) thrills of chatting to random men on MSN messenger, to all too present struggles which many women experience with the trails of early menopause and postpartum trauma.

Woven throughout this intensely revealing memoir is an obsession with other people’s lives, fuelled by an incessant need to devour ex-boyfriends, and even strangers’, social media platforms. Whilst this rather humiliating confession might seem off-putting to some, I found the author’s raw honesty to be quite moving, and entirely relatable. What’s more, Gibsone is kind to her readers – in that she eventually becomes more understanding of herself, her own unique flaws, as well as the universal unspoken temptation that we all occasionally have to check in on other people’s lives.

Whilst there is forgiveness – and an underlying message that this particular obsession can be detrimental to our mental and physical health – Harriet does not shy away from letting us into her own hidden, tormented world. She is insecure and cannot help but compare herself to others. As a woman (and, at one point, a teenage girl and young adult), I found her intimate tone, confessional style, and dry sense of humour very refreshing.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys an offbeat coming-of-age story. The candid narrative style draws the reader in, and there is a non-judgemental quality to this book that deserves to be applauded.