Like many people my age, I am on my phone a lot. I spend an absurd amount of time online, completely locked into our small, lighted universe. I talk to friends, keep up with socials, leave book reviews, brain dump into my notes app and check my schoolwork entirely online. It’s been this way for most of my conscious, able-to-cut-my-own-food life. So, on the few occasions recently when I have physically taken pen to paper during journal entries or planner updates, I have noticed my brain fighting my hand, frozen and grappling with a way to somehow put 😭 down on my paper.
The 😭 emoji is not a word, but there’s no one word in the English language that can encapsulate the emotional connotation associated with its usage. Emojipedia says it’s the “Loudly Crying Face” emoji, but even less-obsessive internet users will understand that 😭 contains layers of nuanced meaning beyond just sadness. It’s one of those things I know that I only understand from my long-term exposure to the internet. As much as I might try, I know I would never be able to find the words to explain to my grandma how to use 😭 in these varied ways. I find this influence fascinating, the intangible, frenzied and somewhat unhinged universe that Gen Z has leaned on since we were young. It’s this world that Honor Levy’s characters explore and reflect on in “Z was for Zoomer” and other stories in her collection, “My First Book,” releasing on May 14, 2024.
Like 😭, “My First Book” is hard to define. The collection comprises extremely brief vignettes starring various characters, most unnamed and many of which blend together and overlap to give the collection a somewhat autobiographical feel. This lends to the book having a clear tone and message but also allows Levy to develop distinct themes across short stories. A journey into each of Levy’s worlds is brief but never surface level. She manages to impart meaning into the varied and vivid narratives she constructs, crafting compelling arguments that, while I didn’t always agree with, spoke to the damaging and all-consuming nature of growing up with the internet, the ever-looming end times and the surreal aspects of our modern and online world.
It is important to note that while the stories do encapsulate a large part of the experience of our modern culture and how existing on the early internet was brutal and authentic, I’m reluctant to refer to all of its themes as universal. She connects themes of helplessness across generations, but when it comes to class, Levy is painfully aware of the privilege she comes from, acknowledging and scorning the limitations of her perspective.
One of my personal favorite stories from the collection focuses on that privilege. “Hall of Mirrors” is a story about a college student who volunteers with young, underprivileged children and who compares her class position to the life of Louis IVX, the Sun King. She questions the rules of the world, the wealth she was born into and who benefits and suffers at the hands of that wealth — all while lamenting the helplessness she feels in the face of it all. The hall of mirrors, built by the Sun King — who came into power when he was just a boy — reflects only himself, along with his wealth and privilege, neglecting the failing country outside his palace. Levy’s prose is emotional, engrossing and thoughtful, but simultaneously errant. She crafts a profound feeling or moment right before dropping a mention of her vape and blatantly reminding you what century we are in and the realities of the world around us.
“Love Story,” the collection’s opening story, is also perhaps its snappiest. It’s a visceral and captivating amalgamation of what, to an untrained eye, is essentially gibberish. Anyone not fluent in internet-speak, or even obscure anime references, be warned. Levy invokes gym bros, waifus and even Roman empires. As for me, reading this story was like reading a foreign language that I didn’t know I grew up speaking. The story portrays a darkly funny and almost tragic relationship between two online teens, highlighting the tensions between postured facades and painful, human vulnerabilities when interacting in an online space. I was torn between despising the characters for being cruel and shallow and acknowledging that they were children who were just looking for connection, products of their respective internet pipelines. The story is a cold plunge into Levy’s world and perfectly encapsulates the simultaneous condemnation and compassion she harbors for the characters she creates.
“My First Book” might be an acquired taste, but it’s one that I, and I’m sure many other readers of my generation, have grown accustomed to. Through new and twisted ways of discussing all-too-familiar internet culture, class disparity and even edgelords, Levy maintains her rapid-fire prose, satiating any attention span that has been drastically shortened by TikTok. The raw and vital portrayal of the internet through the niche but universally relevant experiences portrayed through damaged and extremely flawed characters is a method guaranteed to translate across generations — though maybe with the help of an Urban Dictionary tab. While I may not be able to explain the meaning of 😭 to my grandma, I know Honor Levy could.
Daily Arts Writer Cora Rolfes can be reached at corolfes@umich.edu.