CyberDayze

Have you ever done something that you thought you would never, EVER do? I did. On the computer. CyberDayze explores the implications of allowing your 'intangible', cyber life to cross over into your 'tangible', real life -and the consequences therein. As a non-fiction book written loosely in an autobiographical format, "CyberDayze" also has a theory buried within. But I deliberately DID NOT disclose my thesis statement up front, with supporting documentation following. Rather, I turned it the other way around, which, in essence, made my supporting statements more of a’ mystery read’-hints, mind you-and asking the Reader here and there, "Do you understand what I’m trying to say, yet, Reader?" sprinkled within. Almost to the very end, I hold out, until I sum up the circumstances of events they had read and ALAS! agree that I certainly well might have a valid argument here. The content is engaging. Interesting. Sad. Thought-provoking. Funny! And, yes, even erotic. It is well worth the read and delivers a substantive message in its wake...

Please feel free to check out a book review of "CyberDayze" below!

"An important work - get off the www for the time it takes you to read it!"

By Kennethon August 21, 2017

This book is both difficult and easy to read. And I'm not sure why. So I will have to read it again. It is noteworthy that I put this Review under the "paper back edition." You may want to read the Reviews under the Kindle Edition as well. But I bought the paperback so it would be easy for me to yellow highlight it and make entries in red ink. Alongside "Words: begging to be written" and "A new addiction instaneously emerged." And "Doomed from the beginning by circumstances that were well beyond our recognition and wisdom, we battled and loved, and loved and battled, and lost in the end."

I suppose this book could be called a "fictionalized autobiography." Fictionalized only because names have been changed to protect the ... participants. We can't really say "protect the innocent," because that wouldn't be right. But although the book is deeply personal, its judgments are not so as much - they are more detached. We follow along with the author her journey through life, her long time battle with depression, the hopes, the disappointments, the betrayals, and eventually the dissolution of her marriage, and we see the very significant role that social media like facebook play in all of that. There are balanced portrayals - social media is seen both as contributing to behavior that was damaging, but also as liberating from impossible confines Catch-22 relationships. If you're looking for black and white and self-help prescriptions, you'll have to go elsewhere.

I won't give away the author's conclusions, if we could call them that. Suffice it to say that there is an admission that this material could be used as a Case Study for followup research in areas that have not been fully explored - along the lines of "How is social media affecting our ways of interacting?"

There are some nuggets throughout. I enjoyed reading of the many bands that the author loved throughout her life - and the concerts she attended, and recognized many of the names: Zappa, Alice Cooper, Rush, Aerosmith, Depeche Mode - and many, many more. In hindsight, it is evident that music was an attempt at self-medication, an aspect which is now formally recognized as "music therapy."

I gave this book only four stars and not five because I wish the author had contributed more of her own commentary to balance out the "journal entries" of her interaction on facebook and chat. I found myself reading through the journal entries motivated to get to the end of that chapter, or to the beginning of the next one, so I could read her "take" on all of it.

This is by no means a "polished" work. It is honest, it is raw, it is visceral. But medicine that is good for you doesn't always taste good.

-- Gina Davis