Man or Mouse - Softcover

Matt Whyman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340769025 ISBN 13: 9780340769027

Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks, 2000

Synopsis

Meet Ren. Underachieving actor. Overactive dreamer. Waiting in the wings of love. Centre of his stage is Roxi, the heaven-sent make-up artist on a cat food commercial from hell. A woman, he discovers, who's literally out of his league.

Thwarted in his attempts to win her over in the real world, Ren resorts to reinventing himself for her in the chat rooms of the Internet. And so begins the deception, desperation and brilliant comic confession of one man and his mouse.

About this title

Review:

Reynard or Ren125733 is having an early-life crisis. His girlfriend has left him and all he has left is a sad life and even sadder screen name. By day a laughable actor; by night a virtual recluse with hours spent hunting female companionship on the World Wide Web. It is only when the rejection becomes too much that he undergoes the virtual sex change to become NuBiFem, the girl whose interests are "Online fun, offline frolics".

Attention from men and women comes flooding in, all wanting to meet the new girl in the chat room, but RoxiNYC is somehow different from the rest. It's not because she is the make-up artist from work whom he can't stop thinking about but because the pair have a special online chemistry that could never work in the flesh. Ren persuades his ex-girlfriend to be NuBiFem's physical presence but the plan backfires when the two become lovers and unfolds a not so much surprising tale but an online Cyrano De Bergerac.

Aside from the difficulty in being romantic on someone else's behalf, Ren discovers the threat of posing as a woman and thus suffers the revenge of the Viagra Snatch Squad, chat room terrorists who've had enough of devious men in their cyberspace. Despite all the romantic notions that love will conquer all, the finale does bring happiness in the most unexpected of ways but gladly doesn't follow the obvious route as it shakes up the classic love story for Internet junkies. --David Trueman

Review:

Whyman races through a narrative that's teeming with devices to ensure a quick and funny read. The chapters are short and pithy, there are puns in every paragraph, and the author makes mischief with computer-speak by relating it to the lexicon of love (The Times)

An amusing take on the Cyrano menage-a-trois legend, it's pacy, racy and cyberspacey...it's also needle sharp on male identity (Mirror)

It's Cyrano de Bergerac for the cyber generation with more than a dash of Some Like It Hot for good measure...wry and pithy observations on sexual politics...an engaging and witty look at sexual identity (The List)

Witty debut novel...Sharp, sassy and hilarious, Man or Mouse is a comical cautionary tale (Waterstone's Online)

A fast paced, very funny book...Ren's voice is ironic and self-deprecating, but still likeable. A cast of believable characters ... a fresh voice in a market currently saturated with e-mail novels. Man or Mouse is an excellent debut that kept me laughing throughout (What Am I Going To Read.com)

Drawing on [Whyman's] professional experience he has created a comic tale of love, deceit and desperation (Shopsmart.com)

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0340769025
• ISBN 13: 9780340769027
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384