This kind of book isn’t my usual fare, but I discovered this author through some YouTube videos on homesteading, and when I read in the description about how she went for a year without the internet, I thought I’d give it a try. I was not disappointed.
Esther Emery has had an interesting life. With one foot in the California theater scene, another foot in the evangelical Christian scene, and… a third, foot, I guess? …in Idaho and the intermountain west, she’s got a very interesting perspective. Her experiences give her a lot of interesting insights, too. When she decided to go for a year without the internet, her life and marriage were falling apart. Going offline turned that all around.
It really surprised me how much she opens up. The writing did feel a bit pretentious at first, but that’s more a function of style than of sincerity. This books is very honest, sometimes brutally. In a world where so many people keep carefully crafted social media accounts, signal their own virtue to their peers, or choose to spend most of their time in echo chambers that serve to reinforce their views, a book like this one really stands out.
Because quitting the internet wasn’t just a stunt for Esther, thought it might have started out that way. It was a genuinely transformative event. As someone who could not function without the internet (mostly just because that’s how I make my living), I found her story to be both fascinating and refreshing. The insights that Esther shares from her experience are quite powerful.
So yeah. Good book. Not science fiction at all, but I enjoyed it. Maybe you will, too.
