Identity Crisis

Product Information

So, Love Island re-brands as Rainbow Island, and brings in contestants of all different colours and creeds; all sexualities and identities, all trans- and nons- and everything they can think of. Elton's story which is very well read by himself follows these politicians, various activists, the production team of Love Island and a number of people who find themselves caught up in the social media trends of the day. This satire of identity politics and media manipulation must be effective because readers on both the left and right think it’s unfair to them. My three last reads this month haven’t been encouraging so I decided to make the deliberate move to pick a Ben Elton book which I was confident would entertain me. This has left me to wonder, and quite frankly, worry for my younger kids who will soon be introduced to this world of culture wars and social media (with their dysfunction, manufactured and manipulated outrage, etc.

He becomes the face of a movement to criminalise and prosecute the long-dead offenders of history, and in pushing himself into the spotlight he opens himself up to allegations of misconduct of his own.Previous satire novels from this author are right up there in my top favourite books ever (Blind Faith and Chart Throb if you are looking for recommendations haha) and this new one has a similar feel to them.

This gives him a remarkable amount of wriggle room to explore topics, by weaving in and out of the facts like dodgems. But the reveal of the killer’s identity was such a cop-out - an unsatisfying rushed ending to a half-baked plot. Yes, Mr Elton has extrapolated past and current events to an outlandish degree and it does all seem a little overblown and ridiculous.Ben Elton is fiercely intelligent and this is one of the most intellectually satisfying books I have read for a long time. Other satires I've read, by frothing-at-the-mouth reactionaries who are living in a terrifying fantasy world they have built in their heads, have been compelling nightmares where we tear through the wall and peer into the writhing psyche of the racist and/or transphobe. With more murders and suicides occurring as quickly as hashtags are created on Twitter, finding the killer(s) becomes a herculean task for Scotland Yard with the killer(s) leaving no traces.

The singular murder of Sammy leads Mike to the realization that the world has literally left him behind in ways he can not fully comprehend and reveals how ‘unwoke’ he is or is perceived to be. So now the show is a breeding ground for divisiveness and conflict, dancing tentatively on the line between ‘entertainment’ and ‘bullying’. I disagree – his main flaw is that he thinks he lacks flaws; he wants to progress because he’s capable without always recognising he’s not ready; he thinks his course of action or plan is the best because it’s his, rather than slowing down and considering potential consequences; he’s rash.For the record so am I, but I would also probably take cues from the fact that every Brexit novel has been shit. I know exactly how all the women in the book look – be it his mother, love interest, money lender or peer – which would be fine if Rothfuss helped me to picture what the men looked like with as much clarity.

It all seems to be lumped in together as "PC bullshit" and "identity politics taken too far" and I just . What little story there is gets stretched much too much, and the myriad strands tossed in to underline the “today’s society is maaaaad” theme feel like stories Elton plucked from whatever was on the front page of the Daily Fail that day. Yes, I happen to agree that the whole manipulation of media is here to stay, I happen to agree that we now have no freedom of speech because absolutely anything can be interpreted as "hate speech" and that the definition of this moves on an hourly basis.I would like to preface this review by saying that generally speaking I like Ben Elton and I understand that this book is satire.