Eight titles about girls growing up on the internet

Andy Anderegg was born in Austin, Texas and lives in Los Angeles, California. She holds a BA from the University of Oklahoma and an MFA from the University of Kansas. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the Dzanc Books’ Prize for Fiction and named a finalist for The Clay Reynolds Novella Prize from Texas Review Press.

Her debut novel is Plum.

At Electric Lit Anderegg tagged "eight books about girls growing up on the internet — and the fallout of all that screen time." One title on the list:

Good Women by Halle Hill

Halle Hill’s collection of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South is perfectly observed, detailed, and sharp, the internet intruding into life and molding it, the way it does — an Apple Watch buzzing bills due mid-funeral, a girl knowing her dad’s health is in decline because her parents aren’t telling her to get off the computer, characters take it as a sign when “cache cookies tracking their 1 a.m. Googles: ‘how to start over’ or ‘how to go back to school with a 1.9 gpa’” turn them into leads for the admissions officer at a not accredited, for-profit, completely a scam college who they gratefully thank, “You’re a good woman.”

I think I’ll forever be able to transport myself to the bus in “Seeking Arrangements.” Krystall is on a 22-hour Greyhound bus trip with an older man (and his baggie of prescription medications she’s minding) who she met on an app, as she avoids texts from her sister (and voice of reason). The old dude’s made big claims that he “created MySpace before MySpace” even though a Google search comes up blank about that, and he likes to chat on Yahoo! email. At the rest stop, I want Krystall to run, but she eats with him in the restaurant, orders and drinks Long Island Ice Teas, and gets back on the bus. Reading, I can smell the bus, almost feel car sick, fantasizing along with Krystall about any and all escape routes.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue