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The decision to get Laura Marshall’s book off the shelves from the (physical) bookstore came quite easily, especially because I had previously researched on something related to photo-sharing on Facebook as part of the requirements to complete the Honours degree, usually an optional year for undergraduates studying in Australia, New Zealand or even the UK. Anyway, the crime thriller was published in 2017, I bought the paperback in 2018 and only finished it at the end of 2019.

I enjoyed the first 90 pages of the book. Beyond that, it got a little too wordy. You’ll also find certain chapters in Italics. Perhaps, this can be seen as one way for Marshall to heighten suspense.

Now that I’ve read the book until the end, I can say that I’ll never look at the social network Facebook the same way again.

Firstly, because Facebook lets users ‘Add Friend’ even if you may not already have established a relationship offline/met the person face-to-face at least once, that in itself says a lot about how the social network works. You definitely want to be more careful, especially after reading the book, even if it’s all fiction. After all, even if you do know the person offline, you can never be entirely sure what becomes of the person in the later part of life, especially if you have not met the person in his/her physical form for a long time.

Secondly, try not to overshare aspects of your life on social media like Facebook. You can never really ascertain who’s watching, each time you post. For example, you’d want to think carefully before posting photos of your kids in their school uniforms, and in which their school badges are obvious. Assuming all you ever post are status updates onto your personal Facebook account, you can never tell what you might unwittingly reveal, even if it’s done in jest. After all, Facebook users are allowed to decide for themselves the kind of privacy settings they’re comfortable with. So, if one user decides to set to ‘Friends Only’, another user may decide to set to ‘Public’. Besides, there is also nothing to stop users from switching between privacy settings at any point in time.

Thirdly, you’d want to be wary about who you’re friends with – offline and online. I know that it’s tempting to want to be friends with the popular and rich kids in school. However, if most of your friends are from only a particular group or kind, you might want to re-examine your circle.  Ideally, you’d want friends and connections who are from a variety of backgrounds and with different outlooks, so that you’d have a more balanced view of life.

Notes:

The Honours degree, which combines both research and coursework components, is usually the pathway towards a PhD.

The author completed her Honours Degree at an Australian university that has a branch campus in Malaysia.