I’m not sure what drew me to Miss Misery. I’d be wandering the aisles at Central for a bit too long as was starting to get frustrated, and a little bit nauseous from staring at so many shelves of books with my head tilted on an angle so I could read the titles. I think it was the title that got me atcually, it sounded romantic and depressive.
Which it is.
It was absolutely unputdownable. I read all 381 pages in two days. I’m not trying to boast about my speed reading skills, I’m just saying that I devoured it. And I’m still not sure I get it.
It’s fantastically contemporary. The main character is David, a struggling writer who has been commisioned to write a book about online journals and blogs, and the lives people lead on them. But instead of writing, he spends half his day surfing other people’s journals, half of it staring at a blank screen, and the rest avoiding the increasingly hysterical phone calls of his editor. He doesn’t appear to be living in the real world.
Through his “research” for his book, he discovers Miss Misery, AKA Cath. He becomes a little obssessive about her and spends far too much time reading her LiveJournal. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Amy heads off overseas, leaving it up to him wether or not they continue their relationship.
This is when things start to get weird.
David checks into his own blog one day, and finds an account of the day bef0re already filled in. By someone claiming to be him. Doing things that he always wished he could do, but never does, because he is a good boy.
The situation quickly spins out of control, with David’s doppelganger running all over town creating chaos, including doing coke like there’s no tomorrow and sleeping with Miss Misery. And since he looks exactly like David, the real David is quickly blamed for his bad twin’s behaviour.
Having finished it, I’m still not sure if the doppelganger was really there,or if David used him as an excuse to cheat on Amy with Miss Misery, or if he was created by David online for good reading in his blog, or if there is some higher exiestential message that I am missing.
It’s probably the latter. It’s probably some prophetic moral warning not to hide and restrain your dark side, because if you ignore those desires, they will eventually overwhelm you and take over your life.
Or maybe he was just crazy.