You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)
by Felicia Day
Touchstone, Aug. 2015
Memoir, Humor
Goodreads Best Humor of 2015
Amazon Best Humor and Audio of 2015
I borrowed this from my local library’s downloadable books. Felicia Day is an actress and Internet personality. I knew who she was because she had a two-season arc as a young scientist on Eureka, a sci-fi show I used to watch, and I thought she was very cute. She also has a recurring part in Supernatural, which I don’t watch.
Her memoir is pretty interesting and often quite funny. She grew up in the South and was mostly homeschooled “for hippie reasons” only her mom wasn’t a very diligent home schooler and the kids mostly got to read whatever they wanted. But she did insist on violin lessons for Felicia, which got her the offer of a violin scholarship to UT Austin when she was only 16. She took the SAT after doing about 100 practice tests from the test book she borrowed at the library and got a high score on the test and an acceptance at UT, despite not having a high school diploma, so she’s obviously very smart. She went on the graduate at the age of 20 with a double major in music and mathematics. To Felicia’s disappointment, her family moved to Austin and Mom drove her to class for four years. So much for independence.
After college, she went to Hollywood to become a not-so-successful actress. Being homeschooled meant she grew up without a lot of friends, until Internet gaming started in the 1990s and she found kindred souls playing video games. She was a pioneer in online TV with a series called The Guild about, you guessed it, a bunch of gamers. She talks mostly about the Internet, including the famous Gamergate controversy.
Though I was a little disappointed that her experiences on Eureka were barely mentioned, overall I enjoyed the book.
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Linda
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@Barrie Summy
This sounds interesting. (I also went to UT Austin, but I can’t really imagine my mom driving me to class everyday…) I’m glad she made it on her own. 🙂
I went to UT Austin, too, for Library School.
Wow, such an interesting childhood! A character in my WIP is homeschooled so I had to research homeschooling in Maine and was amazed to learn that SATs count more for homeschooled kids than traditionally schooled kids because they don’t have a transcript to offset their scores. I imagine the internet would change the homeschooling experience dramatically, especially in remote locations.
That makes sense about the SAT scores. I’m sure homeschooling is much different now that we have the Internet.
What a strange life, methinks. My son often asked to be home schooled, but I thought that’d kill us both!
Great review.
LOL, Jenn. Homeschooling isn’t for everyone!
If a kid’s a reader, self-education is a real possibility, it seems to me. Sounds like a cool book! I’ve seen the author’s name on Twitter, but never knew much about her. Thanks for filling me in.