Many critics do not care for the plot of Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts, panning the debut novel as a mere vehicle for the author’s commentary and opining. “Not bad as social commentary. Not that great as a story,” says Kirkus Reviews. “An experiment in sustained snark, far more interested in critiquing than depicting or dramatising,” says the New Statesman, and, also, “Cold and — even worse — boring.”

This criticism has some merit. The plot is meandering and often tedious (cheeky fourth-wall-breaking admissions of which don’t make the pages turn any more easily), and much of the novel reads like memoir or even cultural criticism. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that Oyler rose to prominence as a literary critic, both loved and hated for her cutting takedowns of celebrated writers.

It is apparently impossible for anyone to review Fake Accounts without mentioning how enticing it might be to take down a writer so known for her unsparing takedowns. But that hasn’t stopped many reviewers from praising the novel for its incisive commentary on the often-toxic role social media plays in modern life. Some either don’t mind the plot or are at least more willing to give her a pass on it (or are perhaps, unlike Oyler but like so many other people who review books, unwilling to actually critique them).