We Had To Remove This Post

Written by Hanna Bervoets

Narrated by Khristine Hvam

For readers of Leila Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny or Ling Ma's Severance: a tight, propulsive, chilling novel by a rising international star about a group of young colleagues working as social media content monitors—reviewers of violent or illegal videos for an unnamed megacorporation—who convince themselves they’re in control . . . until the violence strikes closer to home.

Kayleigh needs money. That’s why she takes a job as a content moderator for a social media platform whose name she isn’t allowed to mention. Her job: reviewing offensive videos and pictures, rants and conspiracy theories, and deciding which need to be removed. It’s grueling work. Kayleigh and her colleagues spend all day watching horrors and hate on their screens, evaluating them with the platform’s ever-changing terms of service while a supervisor sits behind them, timing and scoring their assessments. Yet Kayleigh finds a group of friends, even a new love—and, somehow, the job starts to feel okay.

But when her colleagues begin to break down; when Sigrid, her new girlfriend, grows increasingly distant and fragile; when her friends start espousing the very conspiracy theories they’re meant to be evaluating; Kayleigh begins to wonder if the job may be too much for them. She’s still totally fine, though—or is she?

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: May 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9780358622338

Hanna Bervoets

HANNA BERVOETS is the author of seven novels in her home country of the Netherlands, and she has also written screenplays, plays, short stories, and essays. She is the recipient of the prestigious Frans Kellendonk Prize for her entire body of works. She was a resident at Art Omi: Writers at Ledig House, New York, and her fiction has been translated into German, French, and Turkish. She works and lives in Amsterdam with her girlfriend and two guinea pigs. We Had to Remove This Post is her first book to be translated into English.

Reviews for We Had To Remove This Post

[Caterin Juliana Pereira · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is not for everyone, but it was definitely for me

[Christian Hood · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I actually really enjoyed this! I wasn't quite sure what to expect going in and it was a little strange for sure but I ended up being very engaged with it I found the main character relatable but also intriguing, and the subject matter while grim was more than anything extremely relevant to the world we're living in now. I would have liked to have known more about it. In fact my biggest complaint would just be that this novella wasn't quite long enough the ending felt a little bit abrupt but I think I understand the feeling of wtf by the author was going for. Overall an extremely interesting read that really had me in its grip by the end

[Nohemí González Guzmán · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I think this story's timing it's right now, the theme it's perfect for today's issues.

Overall, this book was a quick and entertaining read, but I didn't like the ending that much, the beginning and the middle was perfect I loved it, maybe it ended too abruptly.

Don't think this is a horror book It's more like a raw toxic-romance novel.

Maybe if the author had written more details about the characters, their motivations, or focused on the content moderator part, that'll be great.

[atomic1964 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an uncomfortable but important novella. Excellent translation, well performed. We rarely if at all think about moderators of online content and this book gives us an insight why we should.

[Josh Williams · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Great premise, boring execution. Needed a lot more about the working conditions at the job.