Saturday, January 10, 2015

Book Review: Girl Online

I'm going to write this review as honestly as possible, I do admit that I love Zoella on YouTube and I also love her blog. But I won't let that cloud my decision when writing this review.

So basically the story begins with a socially inept teenage girl called Penny. She's 15,  has a blog that's growing in popularity. To be totally honest I found the first couple of chapters very childish and the cringe-worthy scenes kind of irritated me and so did her total naivety. I felt like she was very doe eyed and that bothered me a bit, because I'm all for a really strong main character.

I also I felt that I was a bit outgrown for the slapstick humour, it didn't make me laugh. So for the first couple of chapters I was mildly disappointed, because I really wanted to like this book and it was letting me down a bit.

I was getting the distinct impression that I had definitely outgrown the novel, having no doubt that my twelve or thirteen self would have enjoyed it a lot more.

However as the story continued I found myself becoming more engrossed in the story, and as her relationship with Noah progressed I found myself liking Penny more and I liked Noah as well. I found some of her friendship issues very tedious however and I think they would be more helpful aimed at a younger crowd.

On the plus side as I came to the end of the book I couldn't but it down and I really wanted to keep reading, I felt like I could see Zoe developing as an author as the book progressed. The only problem was that as that happened the book ended, which was mildly disappointing.

On the plus side I really liked how she made her main character have anxiety issues (I feel like such a sadist saying that like - yay! she's fucked up) however I felt like her response to it was very Bambi like and it irritated me. I am a self confessed cynic when it comes to those topics -oh, the jaded teenagers of the world *sigh*.

Overall I would give the book a solid 3.8 stars as I can't ignore the issues I had with the beginning. I am however looking forward to the second book (it's currently still in discussion - I think!) as I feel like her writing will only develop.
For a debut novel with the amount of pressure Sugg had on her she did very well.

 
Zoe Sugg, Author

1 comment:

  1. Def want read this book soon :) x

    extantmind.blogspot.com

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