Review: "Friend Me" by John Faubion
- emba192
- Feb 3, 2015
- 3 min read
Summary:
When a lonely wife and her frustrated husband each secretly pursue companionship online, neither dreams that a real woman is behind their virtual creations, threatening their marriage—and their lives. Scott and Rachel’s marriage is on the brink of disaster. Scott, a businessman with a high-pressure job, just wants Rachel to understand him and accept his flaws. Rachel is a lonely housewife, desperate for attention and friendship. So she decides to create a virtual friend online, unaware that Scott is doing the exact same thing. As Rachel desperately tries to re-create a friendship with a friend who has passed, Scott becomes unfaithful and is torn between the love for his wife and the perfection of his cyber-girlfriend. But neither realizes that there’s a much larger problem looming… Behind both of their online creations is Melissa, a woman who is brilliant—and totally insane. Masquerading as both friend and lover, Melissa programmed a search parameter into the virtual friend software to find her perfect man, but along the way she forgot to specify his marriage status. And Scott is her ideal match. Now Melissa is determined to have it all—Scott, his family, and Rachel’s life. As Melissa grows bolder and her online manipulations transition into the real world, Scott and Rachel figure out they are being played. Now it’s a race against time as Scott and Rachel fight to save their marriage, and their lives, before it’s too late. In today’s digital age, the Internet presents all kinds of opportunities to test our personal boundaries, and this exciting and suspenseful story raises important questions about the ethics of virtual relationships. Friend Me will open your eyes to a new—and terrifying—moral dimensions and how they play out in the real world.
Review:
Ok. Where to begin... The whole concept of this story was what initially intrigued me. The idea of this advanced technology to create a virtual friend and be able to video chat with them was unlike any book I've read before. But. This was Faubion's first novel and you could totally tell. He is not a seasoned writer by any means. The dialogue was not realistic what so ever. Every conversation seemed forced and too 'on the nose'. The characters didn't need to talk through everything they were doing or thinking. I also didn't connect with any of the characters at all. The antagonist Melissa probably had the most depth. What was interesting was that the conversations between these characters and their virtual friends seemed more realistic than the conversations they had with each other. After reading the authors short bio on the back of the book I saw that he was a Sunday school teacher. Which is fine, but he made his characters all believe in God and made many references to the bible and bible versus which was honestly annoying. I'm Catholic, but the religion in this book was borderline ridiculous. Like the characters would sit and pray together and look for a sign from God. He even threw a pastor in the story which was unnecessary. Faubion's author bio also mentioned he was a computer programmer and he did a great job going into depth about how the Virtual Friend site was created and how it worked. I think that added a lot to the story and made it more realistic. Overall good try Faubion, but it needs some work.
Rating:
3/3 Stars
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