Here’s the thing about Chelsea Fagan’s “I’m Only Here for the WiFi:” It is downright, oftentimes, laugh-out-loud funny. Fagan just has a way of turning a phrase – well, more like concocting a phrase-like cocktail out of overwhelming sarcasm, addictive wit and unavoidable truth. Only then does she inject the narcotic into your veins and let it marinate. I’m sorry, did I say marinate? I meant cause a ruckus.
The thing is, Fagan often was trying a little too hard when she wrote this book. Her humor is stuffed in the pages so gratuitously that it’s as if the book was a Thanksgiving turkey. Which, in the beginning, is amusing, but it wears thin quickly.
The subtitle for instance, “A Complete Guide to Reluctant Adulthood,” is immensely misleading. It would be more appropriate to change it to “A Complete Guide to Young Women and Copious Amounts of Alcohol and Sex.” The novel is 100 percent geared toward females, rather than males, and I wasn’t able to read five pages without stumbling across a passionate endorsement for drugs and intercourse.
Consider this quote regarding hobbies, “Never in your life do you have such a potent combination of free time, youth, access to social events, and tingling loins that long to meet other, similar-minded sexy young people in various activities. This is the time to get involved politically for about ten minutes, to try out for a play (even though you’ve never been in the same room as a stage) simply because the person you’re trying to bang is a huge drama nerd.”
Similar long-winded sentences such as this are often found within the 185 pages, and they are all just as sex-crazed. I mean, isn’t it just as acceptable to want to join a club or start an activity for the sheer pleasure of doing it? Or even to meet people you don’t want to hook up with?
To back up my observations of Fagan’s obsession, here she is continuing her thoughts on hobbies:
“You can dabble in a little of everything – including recreational drug use – without being defined by it. Everything is a hobby.”
Here, Fagan is implying that drugs can be a hobby. I understand young people are going to experiment – it’s not for me to judge. But when a book is advertised as a guide to becoming a functional adult, I don’t think constantly endorsing the consumption of drugs and alcohol is a particularly good tactic.
When I picked up “I’m Only Here for the WiFi,” I thought I would find a fair amount of laughter, and I did. I also figured I’d find a slathering of sarcastic wit, which I did. What I most expected to find, though, were shiny, golden nuggets of insight, and guess what? I did.
Hidden amongst the drivel, there are actually words of inspiration, quotes to scribble on a Post-it note and slap on your bathroom mirror. Like in most cases, you just have to search for the treasure.
“Maybe that is what makes you an adult more than anything else in your life. To look at what you’re doing and honestly say, ‘I am trying my hardest and being kind to people, and I like who I am.’”
