Ribon's lead character, Anna Koval, does little to hide her actual identity (she calls herself Anna K.) as she chronicles her childhood, her daily life, her active romantic life, her dreams and aspirations. But Koval creates an idealized version of her life, fusing actuality, taking liberties with time lines and making her world seem much better than it actually is. She uses her friends' real names.
When she's called to question by her friends and (some members of) her family who've either discovered or know about the site, Koval dismisses their concern noting that no one was going to see the journal, anyway. In what may be her most grievous lie, she paints a rosy portrait of life with her live-in love, Ian. The only problem is that the idyllic Ian only lives on Anna K's webpage. In Anna Koval's "real" world Ian has long dumped her and moved on to Koval's one-time friend, Susan.
In the course of the novel, Koval introduces her family, which includes her parents (pushy mother, emotionally distant father suffering from health issues) and her two sisters, Shannon (playful and fun) and Meredith (judgmental, confrontational), as well as her best friend Dale (clichéd, supportive, gay). She also develops a kind of new-media penpal-ship with two avid readers, an ebullient young woman named Tess and a potential soul mate in the winsome LDobler (yes, of the "Say Anyting" Lloyd Dobler).
Ah, but as anyone who's followed romantic fiction (filmed or in literature), knows that there has to be a twist, a great misunderstanding and a resolved coupled with a personal epiphany. The flawed heroine becomes a better person for it, and it always ends on a note of hope.
There are undoubtedly clever and genuinely funny moments in WGAW - many apparently pulled (and edited) from Ribon's original web journal. But the real problem with the novel is that Koval (impossible to separate from Ribon, given how closely this fiction mirrors the "reality") isn't really all that likeable. And moreover, the web "entries," which are interspersed between Koval's running first-person narrative, are just not compelling enough to merit the huge audience that "Anna K." is getting and the intimate tell-all emails her fans send her.
Ribon's Anna K and her fictional creator are simply too caught up in what she is telling us is her cleverness to make this book genuinely noteworthy. Instead of repeatedly telling readers how funny and smart and with potential-to-grow she is, Ribon might have concentrated on letting the story speak for itself, through character, plot and development.
Along with enjoying a good book, Joseph enjoys gardening. Garden Harvest Supply is one of his favorite garden web sites which offers vegetable plants for sale, including asparagus plants. |
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