Last month I pre-orded Zoe Sugg's new book Girl Online from
Book World and yesterday afternoon I started to read it and I finished it last night so I thought I would share some of my thoughts (without spoilers of course.. well I hope you don't count them as spoilers because I don't)
I used to read a lot of teen books (obviously because I was a teenager) and I found myself cringing at points in this book because of how cheesy and teen it was which is a given because that is Zoe's audience and I am now nearly 21 years old. I'm not saying this was a bad thing, it was still a really good book overall, in my opinion. (But sidenote: this has made me want to find some older books)
Who doesn't love a dreamboat cute boy in a story? Especially when he is from NEW YORK (the #1 place I want to travel) and he is into MUSIC which is even better and just has this cool vibe. Yeah boys in books are just great as well as curse because they are perfect but purely fictional and do not exist for me to ever fall in love with them (rude). Penny and Noah's little romance had me squealing throughout and I sometimes had to stop for a moment so my 17 year old heart could SINGGGGG from the cuteness overload (read the sing bit like
this for it to not sound so strange.. or maybe it still is). I also finished the book at about 1:30am holding it against my chest and grinning like a child from ear to ear. Turns out I'm not completely soulless and the romantic fire inside of me isn't completely out.
I also loved that it's also set in Brighton - another place I'd love to travel to. Little details and special spots of the place add a nice little touch and as a fan of Zoe, know that she likes those little things in real life too and a lot of Penny's characteristics and likes reflect on Zoe herself. Little shoutouts to #TeamInternet were nice.
From the blurb and if you follow the world of YouTube or Zoe in particular, you generally know that the story revolves around Penny who writes a blog. You would also know about all of the controversy lately regarding the negative comments that people leave on daily vlogs, particularly those of Zoe and Alfie and they themselves have voiced their thoughts on the matter. This is repeated in the book so Zoe is very clearly sending the message that it isn't nice to leave mean comments online about people you do not know and that she really isn't having any of it. It sucks that there are people out there in the world who still find it in themselves to continue with mean comments because the rest of us are sitting here like YES OK WE GET IT ALRIGHT. Which is all I could think when I was reading it in the book but that's just me.
There is another controversy that has just recently come up after it was announced that Zoe broke all the records as a debut author etc etc (you've heard and seen it all I'm sure - if not, Google is your friend). That controversy is that the book was written by a ghostwriter as well as Zoe herself (again, Google or any social media is your friend here). Shock Horror. Not. I don't get the big deal. Of course she didn't write the whole thing herself. Penguin came to HER and gave her the chance to write a book. She hadn't already written one and showed it to a publisher, which is often the case with books. But most importantly the whole time that this book writing has been going on, Zoe has made it very clear that she has had help the whole way. She never said she wrote the whole thing 110%. She was always mentioning it in vlogs as well as going to meetings about the book. The characters and the story were all hers, she just needed some help along the way to put her ideas to paper in the best way possible, as most of us would. The world and mainstream media need to calm down and get off the poor girl's back. Kind of ironic that the moral of the story is to be nice to people online and Zoe is now taking a break because of all this stupid unwanted attention.
So overall I did really enjoy this book and it makes me want to get back into reading. I'm on uni break after all so I don't really have an excuse.
What do you think of the controversy now surrounding the book? Have you read it? What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
Zoe's YouTube
Zoe's Website/Blog
emma
