"Fake Accounts" by Lauren Oyler is a sharp, satirical novel that explores the absurdities of online life and identity. The book delves into themes of deception, self-awareness, and modern relationships through the eyes of an unnamed narrator who discovers her boyfriend's secret Instagram. It's a witty, thought-provoking read for the digital age.

I couldn't get through this title. It ended up not being for me, but I hope it finds a hope with other readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Lauren Oyler is very talented and incisive but the story lacks emotion and cohesion. Especially the middle section, which feels like the narrator just wandering around Berlin having various thoughts. I personally feel that if a book is plotless, it should be driven by either a compelling narrative voice or some interesting experiment with form, and this seems to have neither.

A hilarious and well-plotted novel. Didn't see the ending coming at all, which was a welcome surprise!

I attended some virtual author events. I liked the premises of the book better than I liked the book..

I received a free ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The narrator in this makes you feel like you’re chatting with a friend giving it a personal and intimate feel and it had great insight into the Internet culture as a whole

I started reading this book and found that it was not for me. I didn't want to review a book that I didn't finish.

This was odd, eerie and witty. The timeliness of it all made me a little uncomfortable, but I think that was the point. Lauren Oyler is a good writer.

I DNF at 20%. The stream of consciousness style and plot were not what I expected and did not keep my interest. I will not be posting my review on retail sites.

Thank you to the publisher for providing this ARC.

I could not stop reading this! Lauren Oyler's Fake Accounts is an intelligent, searing, wild ride. Oyler captures the experience of professional and romantic ambivalence in such an honest way, and her descriptions of Berlin, New York City, and these characters are engrossing.

I was so very excited for this book, as the blurb sounded tailor made for me. Unfortunately, the dense writing style did not mesh well with me at the moment. I found myself dragging through this.

What if the boyfriend you only felt meh about and was thinking about breaking up with suddenly died, leaving you the supposed brokenhearted girlfriend? What if right before he died, you found out that the boyfriend ran an anonymous account that shared wildly inappropriate conspiracy memes? That's what the main character of Fake Accounts finds herself at the beginning of this wild ride of a story.

I thought the boyfriend would be even more part of the story but a lot of it was the main character discover herself through traveling and living in a different country (Berlin). Specifically her dating life in Berlin seemed to be the main topic for most of the book. Honestly, the book was like a roller coaster of plot and emotion that at times I didn't find pleasant.

Was so excited about this one but it fell flat. It took me awhile to get into - could definitely be more me in terms of burnout regarding the Conservative party.

Funny, smart, and edgy but, at times, a bit over-written. Oyler climbs deep into many rabbit holes, but some of those adventures read like she's showing off, not advancing the narrative or the characters.

I'm not a fan of the stream of consciousness style of this title and found it hard to care about the protagonist as she seemed both vain and selfish.

A genius and compelling artistic stab at modern (American, German) life—dating life, especially—in the age of Trump and Tinder and heated sexual politics, <i>Fake Accounts</i> isn’t for everyone and maybe isn’t for most, but it certainly was for me. This tense, sardonic deep-dive into the uncertain head of a millennial woman living in the <i>now</i> is at times both rewarding and frustrating, searing and funny.

If you’ve ever wanted to run away to another country or pretend to be a different zodiac sign, this book is for you. I’ll be thinking of it for a long time.

Snooping through someone’s phone usually turns up exactly what you’re expecting: innocent flirting, nothing at all, details of an affair. But when the narrator of Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts goes through her boyfriend’s phone, she’s shocked by what she finds. Ordinarily anti-social media, Felix not only is running a viral alt-right conspiracy theory account on Instagram but it’s clear that he’s constantly checking the app. Should the narrator even be surprised, though? After all, he’d had to come clean after they met that the person he said he was didn’t actually exist. And so begins Oyler’s wading into contemporary and millennial culture, exposing all of us for the cultivated brands we are (or try to be).

Set in the shadow of the 2016 election, Oyler provides a vivid picture of that contemporary culture down to how user interfaces of apps looked at the time the story was written. But as far as how the world outside an iPhone looked? The narrator doesn’t provide much because she isn’t aware of it herself. The story opens in Brooklyn, travels to DC for the Women’s March, and then Berlin but the narrator’s ability to be aware is limited only to self. Or at least how she’s perceived by other people (with extra attention paid to virtual over corporeal). Big events unfold around her and she interacts with them in a detached way we’ve come to experience most things in the age of COVID: filtered through a cell phone screen. Meeting new people in bars — organically, the way she’d originally met Felix — isn’t something one does. Instead, people need to be vetted and verified through dating apps connected with social media accounts because that’s supposed to give you a better idea of who the “real” person is. Or, who they wish they were. Even as the narrator tries on different personalities (that fit to different astrological signs), you can’t help but wonder if this isn’t just something that’s for fun, but a self-discovery journey that the narrator is worried about taking too seriously. It’s emotionally safer to be casually nihilistic than earnest.

Fake Accounts is a book with layers. On the surface, it’s easy to judge the narrator as being self-absorbed and feel some moral superiority. Digging deeper, both into the book and into the self, the book provides a reflection of our (millennials) worst qualities and asks what the hell we’re going to do about it. Can we really continue to fake it until we make it? The narrator certainly thinks (hopes) so.

Dark and funny, Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts is a great criticism of current popular culture.

It is ironic to me that this book was written by a notoriously tough literary critic.
I don't think I am one to judge a novels value and rating one it very hard.
What I can speak to is what I enjoy and I find entertaining when I read.
This, unfortunately was not it. This was a very odd novel that follows the train of thought of a woman who discovers her boyfriend has a secret conspiracy Instagram account. One night she goes through his phone and discovers the account. Their relationship is very unfulfilling this was the final reason she needed to breakup with him.
The rest of the story goes into the mundane details of her life as she travels to Germany. Somehow her deceptive boyfriend dies, so she runs away to grieve and get over her situation in Germany of all places. The story provides excruciatingly exact detail into every little thing she deals with. Between men, finding them on Tinder, meeting them, sleeping with them to finding a job and filling out paper work.

This was just not my favorite book. I'm sure it has some deeper relevance to the literary world at it entirety, but the story itself was not entertaining. There was no arch or drive for the character. We are just watching this woman float through her life with very little investment.

The friend who insisted I read this book told me this book perfectly captures life online -- "nothing happens and its so good." I do agree that it felt eerily familiar for someone who's very online, and I definitely agree that nothing happens. But I would not agree that it was "so good". What I loved was limited to Oyler's passing but sharp references to life right now (describing an acquaintance's affair, the boyfriend said they should start a podcast together). Everything else was grating. The narrator was condescending and not self-aware, and this with the lack of both plot and character development made it difficult to keep reading.

Oyler's novel "Fake Account" is clever and humorous. Since so many people engage in online dating, following social media, and engage in conversations about current conspiracy theories, it's easy to follow along on our unnamed narrator's journey with her rather nondescript boyfriend, Felix. Once he's out of the picture, we go on several unmemorable dates, and watch our narrator frolic around Berlin. At times the novel slows down as we meander into lengthy horoscopes for her dating profiles, what keeps you reading is that her narrative is engaging.
This is the kind of novel you can pick up, read for awhile, chuckle, take a walk, then pick it up again, and feel a bit more connected to something in this world, mainly because so much of the novel is about that feeling of disconnectedness, the constant need of searching the web for dates, tweets, info, something so many of us are plagued with during this damn pandemic. I can't say the ending was too surprising, so maybe Felix was right about that, but it needed to end, and that ending worked for me.