None of This Is Serious: Catherine Prasifka

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Although its themes are universal, a lingering Catholic guilt identifies the book as Irish. Sophie is still plagued by the influence of a priest in primary school who taught that premarital sex is a sin and recalls accompanying her best friend Grace to England for an abortion before the repeal of the Eighth Amendment. Grace’s boyfriend “left her after she refused to carry his child”, we learn. “He was too Catholic to support her decision, but not Catholic enough to not f**k her.” Grace enters the room and asks me to help her clear up. It takes a moment for me to understand what’s happening. Finn moves and releases me. I follow Grace into the kitchen, and she shakes her head at me. When I look over my shoulder, Finn is looking at his phone as though nothing’s happened, and perhaps it hasn’t. You can’t just lean into normative feminism, you have to subvert it first,’ Steph is adamant. ‘You can’t just go along with the whims of the hegemonic capitalist patriarchy and call it empowerment.’

None of This is Serious Quotes by Catherine Prasifka - Goodreads None of This is Serious Quotes by Catherine Prasifka - Goodreads

As the story develops, we learn that Sophie is trapped in more than a few toxic relationships. She has Hannah, her gaslighting twin, Finn, a friend who sleeps with her but doesn’t date her and Rory, her new love interest who she primarily communicates with online. Personally, all these stories resonate with me and I really enjoy their niche genre. None of This is Serious is a wonderful addition to the group. Grace is beside me, and I hear her whisper, ‘Pr**k.’ I take another crisp and let it go soggy in my mouth before chewing it.a b "Billy Bragg Sings Songs Of Protest". Philadelphia Daily News. 1988-05-29 . Retrieved 2013-07-15.

None of this is Serious by Catherine Prasifka - read an extract None of this is Serious by Catherine Prasifka - read an extract

Within this group of people, we meet Grace, Sophie’s best friend. There is certainly something to be said about the less-than-stellar relationships that Sophie has with the men in her life, it is also interesting to see the spectrum of behaviour & feelings she experiences due to her best friend. I am still unsure how I feel about Grace. Would Sophie be better off without her shadow? It’s difficult to say. Without Grace to bounce ideas, & feelings, & recount events to breakdown moments, where is Sophie? As she is forced to grow to become an adult person, she is never given the care that was needed to know who she was. In lieu of spending time analyzing why she might feel so attached to technology rather than people with whom she might have a tangible & warm relationship, Sophie evades all truths residing in her own body. She degrades herself to the point of believing herself better off dead. It is by lying on the cold tiles of her bathroom floor that she is able to remember that her body can feel things; can connect with more than the terrible things she believes about herself. I raise my bottle in cheers. I suppose to them it seems like nothing’s happened. I’m not conscious of the words I say to get them to move on, but eventually they work.

The Fall of the House of Usher reference was a nice way to add more to the general feeling of unease about modern life too: Amid the panic and meta-analysis about the panic, life continues, and eventually the news cycle moves on; “the apocalypse came and went”. Okay, so, I only heard this third-hand, so maybe it’s not true but, you know, it might be. Anyway, that girl here with Finn? Apparently, they’re dating.’ Look,’ she says, ‘I need to tell you something. I just heard it, and I don’t want you to be upset or anything, and I didn’t invite her, by the way, it just happened, but I thought I definitely had to be the one to tell you. But finish peeing first, please.’

None of This Is Serious by Catherine Prasifka review — a

We go outside and look up at the sky. Where before there was only light pollution, now there’s a hairline fracture spanning as far as I can see in either direction. It’s lit from within by a violet glow that seeps across the night sky.Dublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They've got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. Then, at a party, what was already unstable completely falls apart and Sophie finds herself obsessively scrolling social media, waiting for something (anything) to happen.

None of This is Serious by Catherine Prasifka – Book review None of This is Serious by Catherine Prasifka – Book review

I take a gulp of wine straight from the bottle and angle my face so I’m visible from the hallway. I picture the scene from the outside and imagine I look like a regular girl having a good time, and it fills me with delight. He rests his head between my breasts and I stroke his hair. I think about leaning down and kissing him, and I drink more wine. He can probably feel my heart beating under his head, if it isn’t obscured by a layer of fat. I hum gently as I listen to him talk. I could easily drift off to sleep. My hand is resting just below his chin, and he bends his head to kiss it. None of this is Serious is not always an easy read but I binged it. If you’ve ever been in a toxic relationship, or are a woman who has been on the receiving end of any kind of sexual harassment, or ever used social media to drown out reality, or ever felt alone and confuse about your place in the world, you’ll resonate.

After a minute, Grace opens the door, a drink in her hand. Noise from the party pours out. I don’t recognise the song. Multicoloured balloons roam free-range on the floor. People are dancing in the kitchen beyond the hall, some of them well. It all washes over me. Sending my huge thanks to Canongate Books and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review, and to the author for writing this gem of a book that I will reference and cherish for a long time! I want to move on from now. I want to grasp the future that is available to me and stop fixating on what I've done. I'm not alone, I've never been alone; I just had the wrong idea of what loneliness meant. I want to stop pretending I believe what I've been taught happiness is: I have to find out for myself.” There’s an Oulipian game I like to play when reviewing the work of young female Irish writers: can I avoid any reference to Sally Rooney? To my mind, it’s reductive to lump distinct voices together based solely on age, nationality and gender. God, you look like a drowned rat, come in come in come in, I didn’t even notice this rain starting.’ She pushes me through the door. ‘Need a drink?’