Offline: A Novel - Softcover

"Brian Adams's charming and heartfelt young adult novel Offline explores the harm that comes with trading the real world for an online one. Meagan has a real problem. She's not addicted to drugs or alcohol or gambling, but she can't tear herself away from her phone for the life of her. She spends hours swiping, scrolling, and texting. It's beginning to stunt her growth, creating a barrier between Meagan and real, offline relationships. Offline, with its accessible, funny characters and engaging storyline, explores what happens when a seemingly harmless habit takes over someone's life. . . . Meagan's development is at the center of the novel. The at-first deeply superficial teen blossoms into someone who values the complex, tangible world around her. . . . Humorous and earnest, Offline reminds us to unplug and appreciate the things we might miss while buried in our phones."

Meagan is a seventeen-year-old netaholic, addicted to online dating but scared to death to take those online “relationships” offline. Banished by her parents to her gay hippie grandfather’s farm (where the cell reception is terrible!), she is so not looking forward to a techno-free summer of gardening and cleaning house. When two offline boys fall for her at a Netaholics Anonymous meeting, she desperately enlists her bestie Sheila to help extradite herself from such an awkward situation. Good luck with that! Falling in with a ragtag bunch of Luddites, Meagan joins a zany softball team, takes the game of Scrabble to a whole new level, and gets immersed in the world of invertebrate sex—all the while coming to terms with her raging netaholism and discovering the joys and heartbreaks of offline relationships.

Offline is a romantic romp through the dark underbelly of technology. Equally parts serious and ridiculous, this fast paced romantic comedy for adults and young adults gently pokes fun at the perils and pitfalls of the online world. Brian Adams is the author of two award-winning romantic comedies about environmental activism, Love in the Time of Climate Change and KABOOM! In a previous life he was a college professor, desperately trying to get folks to stop texting in class, put away their damn phones, and get the hell outside. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife and cat.