The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Lockwood, Patricia. No One Is Talking About This. New York: Riverhead Books, 2021.

In Part I, the protagonist scrolled through the portal (the author's term for the internet), seemingly at random, looking at various images and comments. She contemplated the strange behavior that people engage in online and worried about the stability of the United States, which was being governed by a “dictator” (4). The protagonist became famous after one of her posts on the portal, reading, “Can a dog be twins?” (13) went viral. She was subsequently invited on a tour around the world to discuss the portal on panels and in classrooms. After a series of racially-motivated brutality incidents, the protagonist tried to learn to hate the police like everyone else on the portal, but this was challenging for her because her father was a retired police officer. She thought about the possibility of going back in time to kill Hitler or the dictator when they were babies, but realized this would not prevent the violence that these men helped facilitate. She believed fascist leaders were only a symptom of a larger problem within society—right-wing extremism. As she toured Europe, the protagonist gained insight into how different countries view the U.S. and how their laws were different from her own. Most notably, European countries did not see the number of mass shootings that the United States did.

The protagonist watched a video online from a “Nazi rally” (57) in which a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of protesters, killing a woman. She thought about how difficult it would be to explain things she had done or said on the portal to a hypothetical future child. She felt depressed about the political situation in the U.S. and angry at her father, who supported the dictator. At home for Christmas, the protagonist saw her siblings. She recalled her brother, a military veteran, once telling her that he would protect her “when it all went to hell” (77), by which he meant in case of an apocalyptic event. The protagonist's sister told the family that she was pregnant.

A school shooting caused the protagonist to feel further anxiety about the state of America and the future. When she was away from the portal, she felt a sense of longing for it, as though she was missing something vital. For her birthday, she asked for a small safe. She locked her phone inside and gave the combination to her husband, hoping to curtail her use of the portal during the day. However, she only lasted two days, after which she went to her husband's office and begged him for the combination so she could retrieve her phone. She remembered an incident from childhood when she was exploring a creek with her brother and sister. She was chased by a swarm of bees and left her siblings behind. An hour after she returned home, her mother asked where her siblings were and the protagonist took her to the creek, where her sister was still lying on top of her brother, shielding him from the bees. She also recalled a cousin who had autism and could not communicate verbally. He hit himself on the head in time to the beat whenever music was playing. The protagonist briefly thought about the possibility of having children. She received a text message from her sister with a picture of her ultrasound attached. She responded, “hello, little alien! … welcome to this awful place!” (113).

At the beginning of Part II, the protagonist received a message from her mother reading, “Something has gone wrong...How soon can you get here?” (119). She flew to Ohio immediately. Her mother picked her up at the airport and began weeping. Her sister was 26 weeks pregnant and the baby was diagnosed with Proteus syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes overgrowth of the head and limbs. The doctors were unsure if the baby would live, and the birth would also be potentially dangerous for the protagonist's sister. The protagonist argued with her father, who was against abortion. Ultimately, her sister carried the baby to term and both survived the birth. The protagonist was named her niece's godmother and she was overjoyed. She adored the baby and all other concerns seemed to disappear. However, she was also consumed by grief, acutely aware that her niece, who almost immediately began suffering seizures, would not live long.

The protagonist stayed with her sister for a few months, and when she returned home, she no longer felt like spending time on the portal. She had a dream in which her niece spoke to her, claiming to be “a very advanced life-form” (166). The family took the baby to Disney World and the protagonist imagined her niece was offering words of comfort about mortality while riding the Haunted Mansion ride. Later, they held a six-month birthday party for her. The next day, her condition had grown significantly worse and they took her to the hospital, where she passed away. The protagonist grieved, but also celebrated having the opportunity to know her niece and spend time with her. She returned to her tour, and in a nightclub in London her phone was stolen. She imagined the thief looking at her lock screen and seeing the picture of her niece, “opening her mouth, about to speak, about to say anything” (208).