Dave Pell’s “Please Scream Inside Your Heart: Breaking News and Nervous Breakdowns in the Year That Wouldn’t End” is a kind of time capsule of the year 2020, month by month, by the man who calls himself the managing editor of the internet. Pell’s newsletter, NextDraft, is apparently well-known, but I admit I went into this clueless about him or his newsletter. 

In addition to chronicling the year  from hell, Pell explores his deep connection with his Holocaust-survivor parents, and all the are both  heart-warming and gut-wrenching. Here is Pell on his father escaping the Nazis: “In the darkness, my dad crawled on his hands and knees through mud and s— until he reached the edge of the Polish forest,” Pell writes. “He survived there for months, alone, often getting through the night by stealing some warmth while lying on top of outdoor bread ovens. Eventually, he got a gun. A gun meant you could join the partisans, an organized group of insurgents, protecting each other and launching attacks from their hideaways in the woods. He spent years fighting the Nazis, specializing in blowing up German trains headed toward the front.”

The title comes from a sign in an amusement park in Japan, admonishing the riders of a new and very scary ride to be stoic…advice we all needed throughout 2020 (and, so far, 2021).  Four stars and thanks to Hachette Books and NetGalley for providing a copy in exchange for this honest review.