We Had to Remove This Post
By: Hanna Bervoets
Translator: Emma Rault
Release Date: March 6, 2021
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Rating:

The novella We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets took BookTube and BookTok by storm. It was all anyone talked about for months and every library in the general vicinity had a hold list a mile long. This was of little wonder; Dutch author Hanna Bervoets holds much acclaim, including being granted the Frans Kellendonk Prize and having her works adapted for film and TV.

This novella centers on a woman named Kayleigh who takes a new job as a content moderator for a social media platform. Her job, day in and day out, is to review every terms and conditions breaking post there is, including ones that break local, national, and international laws. What ensues is a discussion on how this toxicity seeps under the skin and changes a person entirely.

The novella is told in epistolary format. Kayleigh is telling her tale not to us the reader but a lawyer who may be suing the unnamed company Kayleigh joins at the beginning of the story. This helps the tale along, and also does something interesting. Kayleigh is turned into not just an unrealiable narrator but also manages to explain rather shocking or horrifying things as if it were nothing more than an amusing anecdote.

But does the text work? Does this novella tackling the horrors of what can be found online, the radicalization of otherwise very down-to-earth people, and the prevalence of this sort of content online accomplish what it sets out to do?

Well, yes and no.

This isn’t a horror novella, despite the content matter. It isn’t necessarily a suspense or psychological tale either. We Had to Remove this Post sits firmly within the realm of literary fiction. Yes, it’s dark in nature and it does have a creeping dread and subject matter normally found in Stephen King novels. But it neither leans into nor approaches the horror aspect in the same manner as a horror novel.

Is this why ratings on websites like Goodreads and Storygraph are so low? Well, probably not. Characters are a bit one-dimensional. You see, there’s another problem this novella has.

Being exposed to horrible content online isn’t new. Depending on the readers age, generation, and exposure to the internet, nothing in this novel may seem “that bad” and the questions the novella poses may not seem new but tired, old problems that have been discussed for decades that are still left unanswered. One review I read stated that (paraphrased) they’d “read more horrifying reddit posts.” This, even if unfair to the novella, is probably why reviews are so low. Many readers, including myself, are left with the feeling of “if I’ve stumbled across worse and are fine, why aren’t these characters? If I’ve read about these conspiracy theories and ignored them, why have these characters fallen into them?”

The lack of character development and short nature of the book does the narrative a disservice in this respect. There simply isn’t time to flesh out all of Kayleigh’s coworkers and focus on the slow dissent into darkness and the warping of their morals and beliefs. What could be a slow psychological horror that could show readers the “how” if not the “why” is relegated to the pages of a letter to a lawyer.

We Had to Remove this Post poses questions it doesn’t really answer and tackles topics that, while quite relevant to modern readers, are never given answers or even much room to breathe. This small, slight story doesn’t allow us the introspective, character-driven narrative that might give the story a little more wiggle room and space for plot and character development.

In all, We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets is an easily consumable novella with an interesting premise that doesn’t quite deliver by the conclusion. Despite interesting questions and modern issues being brought up, none are quite tackled. That said, Bervoets is a highly decorated author whose other works I certainly want to delve into.