In this installment of Page 69,
We put Brian Adams' Offline to the test.
OK, Brian, set up page 69 for us.
The poor girl! Banished by her
parents to live a techno-free summer with her gay hippie grandfathers, seventeen-year-old
Meagan is forced to attend a Netaholics Anonymous meeting where two hot boys come
on to her. Not used to navigating offline relationships, the two have asked her
out to the same party and she’s inadvertently said yes to both of them.
What Offline is about:
Offline
is a young adult romantic romp
through the dark underbelly of technology. Our heroine Meagan
is an online dating addict scared to death to take those online “relationships”
offline. Falling in with a ragtag bunch of Luddites, Meagan joins a zany
softball team, takes the game of Scrabble to a whole new level, immerses
herself in the world of invertebrate sex – all the while coming to grips with
her raging netaholism and discovering the joys and heartbreaks of offline
relationships.
Do you think this page 69 gives our
readers an accurate sense of what the book is about?
Much of the humor in the novel comes from Meagan’s missteps
and screw-ups as she desperately strives to rid herself of her online addiction
and interact with the real world. The novel is heavy on snarky dialogue and
clueless teen angst, while highlighting the serious and growing problem of
netaholism. This page is one of many chronicling Meagan’s stumbling antics as
she slowly unplugs and makes the transition offline.
I took the phone and whacked myself
in the head.
“Shit!” I cried.
“What?” Sheila asked. “What just
happened?”
I whacked myself again.
“I can’t believe what I just did. Oh
my God! How could I not have figured out who was who? I am such an idiot!”
“Tell me!” Sheila said.
“I just made a huge screw-up. It was
Jonathan who I told about the bees. Not Derek.”
“And . . .”
“And so it must have been Jonathan
who I said yes to the first time. Not Derek.”
“Jonathan?” Sheila asked. “The other
netaholic dude?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brian Adams recently retired after teaching for 20 plus years
at Greenfield Community College in western Massachusetts where he was a
Professor of Environmental Science and co-chair of the Science Department.
Brian is active in the climate change movement on and off campus. He has
authored numerous health related brochures distributed nationally by ETR
Associates. For his first novel, Love in the Time of Climate Change,
which was a Foreword Reviews 2014 IndieFAB Gold Medal Winner for Humor, he drew
heavily on his experiences teaching and working with students. Brian lives with
his wife in Northampton, Massachusetts and now devotes his time to writing
romantic comedies centered around environmental activism.
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