Everything You Ever Wanted: A Florence Welch Between Two Books Pick

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Small wonder, then, that the chance of a new life on the pink dusty planet of Nyx appeals: “Softer than suicide, an almost death. Speaking of which, there’s its finest glory: existing as an angry mockery of the state of modern life; our fear of fixing our world, our burnout, our lack of drive and purpose. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item. For Iris and her fellow volunteers are also part of a Truman Show reality TV experiment, Life on Nyx, which will see their daily lives and thoughts beamed back to Earth, even though they have no contact with the world back home, no internet or social media, no television, no way of knowing what’s actually going on out there – and, worst of all, no way back. Founded in 2018 by Willow Heath and Jess Esa, Books and Bao curates the most recent global and translated fiction, poetry, and graphic novels alongside inspiring cultural journeys.

They have “no wars, no conflict, no climate change”, and they grow what they eat, becoming leaner as a result: “worthier. The taverna is the only place that Kostas and Defne can meet in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic and chilli peppers, creeping honeysuckle, and in the centre, growing through a cavity in the roof, a fig tree. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a US Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The characters within Everything We Ever Wanted experience a wide range of emotions that as a reader I was swept along with and able to feel with each character. The characters are hauntingly real, and the ending is one of the most memorable I've read in a long.There is no interaction, no engagement, no scrolling, no desolate envy of other people's lives, no addiction to 'likes'- that bitter-sweet dopamine whisper, 'I see you.

Each of the family members in this story had secrets, and hidden upset that kept them from connecting to one another. So many valuable learnings for us to take away and ponder,” Iris’s line manager says after a presentation on hashtags. So when the opportunity arises for her to change her state of existence completely, she jumps at it and goes to live on the planet Nyx. Filled with sharp observations about the way in which we live now, Everything You Ever Wanted is both an acute satire of our social media-dominated times – notably, Iris still strives for “likes” when living on Nyx, even though she has no idea whether anyone on Earth is reading her sanitised social media posts – and a haunting examination of depression and anxiety rendered in diamond-sharp prose with barely a wasted word. The story took a weird turn about three-fourths of the way in and some of the storylines were just dropped with no resolution at all.Older people usually burned out, had children or nervous breakdowns, quit and retrained as something more meaningful, like pastry chefs or yoga teachers. The only character I did empathise with a little was Iris, but simply due to the fact she is the character the reader is given the most time with so naturally a deeper connection is achieved. Starting with seeing how content Iris is in her new "paradise" then immediately jumping back to her on Earth (an anxious, bitterly depressed and unsatisfied being) allowed me to see the appeal of such a seemingly crazy notion.