Moderation by Elaine Castillo will keep you guessing until the very end
- Allen & Unwin
- 32 minutes ago
- 2 min read
One of our resident readers Andrew shares his experience of reading Elaine Castillo's Moderation.
Looking for a great book full of surprises? Hello Moderation.
If you read Elaine Castillo’s essay collection How to Read (hard recommend) you’ll know just want an original, razor sharp thinker she is. As in How to Read Now, Moderation pulls apart culture, identity and most importantly love, in a way that you’ve likely never read before.
The title itself hints at these layers, a double meaning straight out of the gates. It refers to the main character Girlie’s decade long job to moderate online and virtual spaces for a major social media company, but also more sharply refers to Girlie’s whole existence, an act of moderating herself and her surroundings.
Girlie’s origin story is all too common. After the financial crisis left her family hanging on by a thread, she and her mother now live in a house in Vegas in something of a interfamily commune, cousins and aunts under the same roof trying to squeeze everything out of their combined paychecks. And that reality is ironically what has brought her to an almost virtual nightmare, day after day scrolling through the absolute worst that the internet has to offer. But it’s a gig, and she can get by, right?
When her company acquires a new virtual reality technology, Playground, Girlie is recruited to work for them. Girlie’s life changes the moment her new boss William walks into her life. William is handsome, charming and there’s an instant connection. But as she begins to thrust herself deeper into this these new worlds, both William’s and her new virtual reality, what will it cost her?
What makes Moderation so compelling is Castillo’s touch in relationships. She never shies away from complexity and still writes with a beautiful warmth and clarity, inviting the reader rather than issuing pronouncements from on high. The book feels alive, restless, and utterly contemporary—an intellectual work that also pulses with feeling. Her arguments are nuanced yet accessible, and her writing moves easily between tech commentary and a deeply human story.
Moderation will keep you guessing to the very end. Just when you think you know the fate of Girlie, Castillo turns on a dime. Ambitious, prophetic and with the surprising lashings of Emily Henry and William Gibson, an absolute must read.
Moderation by Elaine Castillo is available now wherever book are sold.
Moderation
by Elaine Castillo
A world-weary content moderator takes a job policing virtual-reality worlds, only to uncover dark secrets in the code and unexpected feelings for her enigmatic boss.
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