Book Review : Shelly Lyons - Like Real (2023)
My body isn't perfect, but I kind of like it. Being more athletic and muscular would be great and I would love better vocal cords than the ones I've been dealt, but otherwise I've been dealt a good hand. We all long for what we don't have, but it's considerably worse for people who don't like what they see when they look in the mirror. Shelly Lyons' debut novel Like Real is about a good looking man with a prosthetic hand, but it's about a lot about dealing with the shortcomings of your own body too. In a smart and sensitive way.
Like Real tells the story of Vic Moss, a handsome schmuck who gets bitten (at least three times) by a brown recluse. When his hand starts rotting and getting in the way of his blossoming relationship with sexy Kundalini yoga practitioner Tanya Lazonga, Vic looks for a quick fix and buys a prosthetic from a shady web company called LikeReal.net. The machine-learning, self-improving contraption looks like the purchase of the century until it kind of starts taking a life of its own. Because it never considered itself part of Vic's body.
Body Dysmorphia in the Age of Internet
It's almost a critic's cliché to say it, but it's true: great science fiction are futuristic allegories about contemporary issues and Like Real is exactly that. It's also very much a romantic comedy and a lengthy, understated character study about two people who struggle with accepting their own body. What makes it a particularly clever allegory is that body acceptance was not a problem to Vic until his hand started rotting. What you take for granted all your life can easily slip away from you with one bad roll of the dice.
Both Vic and Tanya deal with their body insecurities in their own way. The former by investing himself into a foreign object he considers an extension of himself (at least for a while) and the other by covering herself with foreign substances and tirelessly fighting against her own DNA with yoga. Although Like Real is never not funny, there's something inherently tragic about Vic and Tanya who are both fighting the same battle. One that they ultimately cannot win. This ordeal gives them depth in spite of their silly interactions.
Like Real moves at a breakneck pace and features smart-aleck, gatling gun-like dialogues, but Shelly Lyons' user friendly packaging conceals an inevitable, confronting depth. Vic and Tanya are both trying to make themselves complete by reaching outwards to different products and ideas, only to face the uncomfortable truth over and over that they won't be complete until they feel so. For the rather slow-witted Vic, it takes a whole lot of straight up, in-your-face life altering shit to happen in order for him to make his peace.
It never feels sad or tragic, it's more Vic and Tanya's problems are relatable, you know what I mean?
I buy, therefore I am
No self-respecting cyberpunk novel would be complete without an anticonsumerist and Like Real also ticks this box. Vic's byzantine interactions with Dr. Cord and his multiple visits at the LikeReal.net offices were not exactly subtle (like anything in this novel), but they were fun in the way Vic's needs were always pretty straightforward and the welcome was anything but. Vic is trying to integrate this new body part to his personality, but both his prosthetic hand and LikeReal.net have their own agenda.
The treatment is always silly and humorous, but Shelly Lyons gets the idea across quite powerfully: the process of seeing yourself in things you own is self-defeating. You might own them, but these things are not you and will never be you, therefore seeing yourself in them is surrendering a part of your personality. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but in Vic's case, this process takes a quite literal turn. I know the premise of Like Real might remind you of cult movie Idle Hands, we’re not exactly in the same register.
Like Real is more like Idle Hands meets Terminator 2, had it been written by Edgar Wright. If this sounds crazy, that's because it is.
*
I thought Like Real was a clever and accessible novel that discussed contemporary ideas without sounding didactic of being too on-the-nose. It's wild and reckless and doesn't take itself seriously at all, and yet delivers an original story that manages to avoid the great majority of cyberpunk stereotypes. I wouldn't say it's a transcendent emotional experience or anything like that, but it's a quick and pleasant read that treats you like an intelligent person. Shelly Lyons really knows who she is as a storyteller.
