Bubble World (2013 Novel Review) [MAJOR SPOILERS]

Do you like the y2k frutiger aero aesthetic? girly 2000s beach aesthetics? internet angel? being chronically online? Do you like The Truman Show? Do you like seemingly utopian worlds that are really dystopias? Can you tolerate YA? If so, then this 344-page 2013 YA novel by Carol Snow is for you.

Plot:
The plot follows Freesia Summers, a teen girl who lives on an island called Agalinas with her best friends Ricky and Jelissa. Everyone lives in paradise. Freesia is popular and fashionable. Everyone goes on dances every Saturday. In classes, school work is optional. The currency is called Shells. You can do things like surf, do a zipline, go on hot air balloon rides, or ride around the pastel colored and seaside town in your Itty Car. Everyone in Agalinas has a Bubble. The Bubble allows them to do almost anything. For example, Freesia can ask it for attire assistance, which shows Freesia various outfit ideas and what she would look like in them(like Cher from Clueless). She can check on Friendlies or Enemies and view what they're doing if they have their cameras on public. It's perfect. The sky is always blue, sun is always shining. The water is fresh and clear, there are rainbows after the light rain, there are shops upon shops, and neighborhoods of birthday cake houses. She lives in a world straight out of Polly Pocket.

Imagine your whole life, you live here:

But lately, paradise hasn't been so sweet. Malfunctions have been happening. Repeating days, shut down of shops, blackouts, and no one else is noticing. Things escalate so far that the next blackout sends Freesia in a deep sleep, or rather, she wakes up.

Freesia wakes up in a recliner in front of a PC and keyboard. The station is inside a giant bubble within a bedroom, which also has a bathroom in it. Freesia's terrified--she is no longer the shining, perfect girl she was. She trapped in the body of an overweight, sweaty, smelly, frizzy girl. But that's the real her. And she's been sitting on that recliner--living in a VR world--for three years. She might as well have wires connected from her body to the computer system. She has no memory of her family whom she soon meets. Her parents are stressed and arguing, completely different from the shiny happy couple that made her breakfast in bed every morning, and her little sister Angel is an edgy hormonal teen that hates her, completely different from prepubescent Angel in Agalinas who still wears tutus. Freesia learns that she has always been a social reclusive girl who was bullied in school. Seeing that computers comforted her, her parents, who are avid supporters of technology and the internet, took her out of school at 13 and enrolled her in a virtual learning program called Bubble World. The program would keep students in their bubble 24/7, unable to leave. And if they did leave, they need memory blockers so they can forget the real world once they reenter. Bubble World is an educational learning program, but the students don't learn anything. However, Freesia's parents don't know that.

When Freesia returns to Bubble World, she fakes taking her memory blockers. She learns that Ricky is also aware that BW isn't real, but his dad is a large investor in the company so he doesn't get banned. He also codes, and placed access to social media websites on his BW computer so he can keep in touch with the real world. However, Freesia's discussion about the real world leads her to be banned from the world. Her parents are confused, and she is forced to tell them that she faked the memory blockers and isn't learning anything. Freesia emails the CEO, Todd, and tells him to unban her or she'll tell the world of how the students don't learn anything. He doesn't listen, and so Freesia's mom publishes a blog on exposing BW. Ricky posts one as well. The blogs gain traction. Freesia and her mom go to meet Ricky. In the meanwhile, since she is banned, she starts to attend real life high school and make friends and connect with her little sister.

When Freesia and her mom meet Ricky, they see he is really a massive pile of flesh, so morbidly obese that he can't get up. Ricky and his dad plan to take down the company, and Freesia's mom team up with them. Eventually people learn that Bubble World was a fraud. Ricky's dad creates a new learning program: Bright Planet, another utopia but this time with actual learning programs, curfew, uniforms, and limited currency. Thus, Freesia returns to her bubble. But it's not the same. She misses her real life family, friends, and connections. Even worse, she learns her long-time best friend Jelissa is an AI. Freesia finally decides to quit once and for all and live in the real world. She tries to convince Ricky to leave as well and to work on his health, but he refuses; he wants to stay online forever. Freesia gives up on him. The first thing she does back in the real world is text her real life friends that she's here to stay.

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Bubble World is still relevant today. Despite the style of writing being relatively simple (it's a YA novel aimed at middle schoolers), it covers internet addiction, isolation, inability to separate reality from fiction, utopias/dystopias, being sheltered, anti-intellectualism, entertainment, VR, and AIs, all while still looking good. After 3 years of being in her bubble, Freesia is unhealthy and even cannot walk on uneven ground such as stairs. She is emotionally distant from both parents and views herself as a stranger. This is the fault of her parents, who neglected her and spoiled her younger sister Angel instead. They sheltered Freesia in a world of perfect illusion of constant entertainment and gave her a computer as a form of therapy while wiping all of her knowledge of the real world, since Freesia was unable to connect with other children and was bullied instead. She had such a culture shock going into the real world that she was repulsed by the fact that people don't look smooth and plastic. She cannot handle loud noises, large groups of people, or even bright sunlight. As a child, her parents refused to deal with her and kept her in a bubble. It's disgusting to read, but luckily the book ends on a hopeful note.