Contacts: From the award-winning comedian, the most heartwarming, touching and funny fiction book

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Mark Watson is, in my opinion, one of the sharpest, funniest and most articulate artists out there. As a kid my family spent summers at the Edinburgh Fringe and I remember discovering Watson for the first time sometime in my teens. He was hilarious then and he’s only got better since. His 24 hour comedy events are the stuff of legend and I’ve got a deluge of memories of sitting at the Pleasance Dome or in strange Edinburgh lecture halls, drunk with excitement and fatigue, as an ever perky Mark Watson leapt around the room. Four years ago I saw his newest show Flaws at the fringe. It was one of the first things I booked, even before I was on the train to Scotland. It was darker and sadder than his previous shows, incredibly personal and yet, still, funny. So funny. Imagine what your first thought would be when your phone lights up with a new message, and you read the words that someone is saying goodbye to you. Permanently. As in, leaving this mortal coil behind. Apart from that, I loved the concept. I think it was really strong. I would have liked if Mark Watson focused on the present with all the messages, rather than focusing on the past. It would have been cool to have each person he texted have a seperate chapter (yes, I know there were 157 or so texts so maybe grouping the 50 or so people that didn't responded into one chapter, as well as the 20 or so people who's numbers were disconnected into another, etc).

I did have a couple of issues with it: the use of stereotypes, and (without spoilers) the execution of the ending, but overall I found it thought provoking and clever. Sagan, Carl (May 28, 1978). "Growing up with Science Fiction". The New York Times. p.SM7. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved December 12, 2018. His room mate who is a very resourceful girl soon sets up an online search party. Through this episode, each of them also end up reflecting on their own life and relationships.

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I really appreciated how we hopped around the world, it gave us an insight into all these different characters and really allowed us to explore their relationship with James. I think this book did a great job of exploring how much of an impact technology can have on our relationships and the way we interact with one another. And it also showed how easy it is to imagine we have such a small impact on other people's lives that nothing in their life could possibly be our fault. In that regard, this reminded me of the only other book of Watson's I've read, Eleven (which I think I preferred a little more but couldn't say for certain having read it so long ago). The book did a pretty good job drawing the various characters, switching between following our suicidal main character and some of the recipients of his middle-of-the-night text. There's quite a bit of suicide ideation in the main character's viewpoint, as was to be expected, but I felt like a lot of the other viewpoints nicely balance that out, showing how a message like that would affect the people receiving it. (Though in the mind of someone suicidal, the other viewpoints could also be read as more "that'll teach them, let me get my revenge this way, I want them to feel this scared and guilty" or "that's the way to get people to treat me better/appreciate me more" points in favor of suicide/suicide threats.) Sagan named the novel's protagonist, Eleanor Arroway, after two people: Eleanor Roosevelt, a "personal hero" of Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan, and Voltaire, whose last name was Arouet. [3] The character is based on the real-life SETI researcher Jill Tarter. [6]

You filled every second with some sort of meaning. You used every minute, every hour well. Because that felt like winning…..So for almost all of every day - all those hoarded minutes, all that time you managed - everything seemed fine. Life seemed like the truth; what came next, you could forget” I have a love-hate relationship with Mark Watson. I want to love him, and I do love his writing and ideas, but yet somehow I always end up hating his books. I would like to thank Harper Collins and Netgalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest and fair review. I do also think that this book could have perhaps been a little shorter, as it was starting to feel somewhat repetitive as we crept towards the end.