No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Published 2021 · 224 pages · 42,383 words · about 3 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is No One Is Talking About This to read?
No One Is Talking About This scores 59 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 52 out of 100
- Lockwood writes in the language of the internet, full of memes, references, and the particular rhythms of online speech. The vocabulary is contemporary and accessible, though some references may date quickly.
- Sentence structure: 60 out of 100
- The first half is fragmented into short paragraphs that mimic the scroll of social media. The second half settles into more sustained prose, creating a formal shift that mirrors the emotional one.
- Abstraction: 62 out of 100
- The portal sections grapple with questions about consciousness, collective experience, and the nature of reality online. The second half becomes starkly concrete, grounded in bodies and presence.
- Information density: 55 out of 100
- The first section is dense with references and observations, mimicking information overload. The second half slows down, making space for attention and care.
- Narrative indirection: 65 out of 100
- The fragmented first half offers glimpses rather than narrative. The second half tells a more direct story, but meaning emerges from the juxtaposition of the two modes.
- Symbolic density: 58 out of 100
- The portal becomes a symbol for collective consciousness and its discontents. The baby at the book's center represents everything the portal cannot contain—presence, embodiment, the irreducible real.
- Ironic distance: 55 out of 100
- The first half maintains the ironic detachment of internet culture. The second half shatters that distance with an emotional directness that feels almost transgressive.
- Resolution withholding: 60 out of 100
- The book moves toward its ending with a sense of inevitability, but refuses easy comfort. What remains is presence, attention, love—not resolution.
- Structural complexity: 62 out of 100
- The two-part structure creates a formal argument: the fragmented portal versus the undivided attention required by love and loss. The form is essential to the meaning.
How No One Is Talking About This is regarded
No One Is Talking About This holds a literary regard score of 56 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.