http://www.further-west.com/comment-disparaitre-de-sharon-huss-roat/
(english below)
J’ai vraiment aimé cette lecture, pleine de bonnes intentions sans tomber dans le mélo. Vicky est une lycéenne souffrant de phobie sociale, qui ne cesse de s’empirer suite au déménagement dans un autre Etat de sa meilleure amie Jenna. Chaque jour au lycée est une lutte pour passer inaperçue. Un jour (suite à quelques rebondissements que je vous laisse découvrir) elle décide de se lancer dans l’aventure Instagram, non pas en tant que Vicky mais sous le pseudo Vicurious, elle choisit donc de garder son anonymat. À partir de cet instant, sa vie va radicalement changer !
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En bref, ce roman est une vraie surprise, je ne saurais dire pourquoi je l’ai plus aimé qu’un autre, mais ce qui est sûr c’est que j’ai passé un super moment ! Les personnages sont attachants, très rapidement ! J’ai apprécié la relation entre Vicky et Lipton (ils sont tellement mignons). Pour une fois, aucun personnage ne m’a agacé, je n’ai pas noté énormément de clichés.
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J’ai trouvé cette histoire pleine d’espoir, une lecture laissant entrevoir une note positive pour tout ceux qui souffrent de ce mal, et qui passent des années scolaires difficiles (finalement c’est le cas pour beaucoup).
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I really, really liked this book, full of good intentions without falling into drama. Vicky is a student who is suffering from social anxiety. It gets worse after her best friend, Jenna, has moved to another state. For Vicky, every day in high school is a struggle, her goal is to go unnoticed, to be invisible. One day (following a few twists that I let you discover) she decides to start an Instagram account, not as Vicky but under an other name “Vicurious”, she wants to remain anonymous. And from that moment, with this decision, her life will change forever !
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This novel was a real surprise, I can not say why I liked it so much more than another book, but what is sure is that I had a really great time reading it ! The characters are so good, I loved them so quickly! I enjoyed the relationship between Vicky and Lipton (they are really cute). And for once, no character annoyed me, and I did’nt notice a lot of “clichés” which is a good point.
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I found this story hopeful, and most importantly, this novel suggests a positive future for all those who suffer from this anxiety.

Lately, So many books have started out strong for me only to take a turn and disappoint me. This one was strong all the way through, but those last 25 pages had me on the edge of my seat. I kept hoping it wouldn’t end up disappointing me...it definitely DID NOT disappoint!

I just spent five consecutive hours speed reading this book while prosinating on my French homework and I have abuslately no regrets!!
This is the type of story that tocuhes the heart, breaks and heals a person at the same time.
There were pages I skipped over because the second hand emberassment was too much, pages I luched over, pages I felt like crying while reading.
But most of all, every single page of this story made me so greatful that I had picked it up to read, and with every single page I told myself I would stop after this chapter, the next one, the next one...
Loved this so much 5/5

Gut Instinct Rating: 5
Character: 4.75
Believability: 4
Uniqueness: 4.5
Writing Style: 5
Excitement Factor: 4
Story Line: 4.5
Title Relevance: 3
Artwork Relevance: 3
Overall: 4.19

Without Title & Artwork Relevance, the story itself would have received a total rating of: 4.54.

This book reminded me a lot of my younger self and some of the ways I tried to connect with "the real world" while hiding out in my room (thank god for Tumblr back in the day). I thought this was a great read, especially for a younger teenager struggling with some of those feelings that are so common as a high school student, but then also the reality of what can exist in the realm of mental health.

***This book review may contain spoilers.***

This was going to be a DNF. Mostly because the character annoyed me from the beginning. Mostly because I related so much. As a person who has social anxiety and had the same thoughts all the time, especially back in high school/college where it was so severe, it just brought me back to the old days. And I didn't want to reminisce. But I also have to acknowledge it. And reading a book wasn't going to change who I am. So I pummeled my way through. And man, this author really knows social anxiety. Really captured it well.

The main character Vicky loses her best friend. Her best friend moves away so she promised to be there for her but instead gets lost with her new crowd of friends and Vicky overhears a conversation where she hears Jenna (her best friend) call her pathetic with Jenna's new love interest Tristan. I mean, it's clear she's saying this because he's calling her lame for being so attentive. First of all, you should have known from that point Jenna, that he was no good for you. A best friend is a best friend. Pshhh. Second, I get the position where Jenna was in. It's also new people at a new school and you're trying your best to fit in. Anyways, of course Vicky, with her anxiety takes it literally and instead of confronting it, she creates a new persona on Instagram called Vicurious. Which ends up becoming Instagram famous and keeps avoiding Jenna through texts/phone calls. (Typical social anxiety behavior I would say. The author has this spot on).

All the while, Vicky starts gaining confidence as her page gets more and more famous. She starts liking this guy Lipton, who I have to admit was a really adorable character and was perfect for Vicky to help her build the confidence she needed without her best friend in the area. They had a lot of cute moments. He was just so adorbs.

I also loved how the book exemplified Vicky's relationship with her mom. Most of the time, a parent and a child are at different maturity levels, and the difficulty of communicating the lessons you already learned through time is something that all parents have to go through. At least I'd like to think so. It's nice that Vicky was finally able to talk to her mom about her anxiety and to talk about getting help.

"The way to overcome your fears is just to face it."

The overall theme of the book. One solution to anxiety. Continuous exposure. It was nice seeing Vicky grow as a character from not being able to say one word to somebody to being able to have full on conversations with people and sometimes not even acknowledging that she had. Time and continuous exposure always helps.

The Vicurious/Vicky Decker reveal was a sweet moment. The Vicurious instagram was created because of her best friend. And she gave up her anonymous identity to find her best friend again. Did the book ever answer if Marvo knew the whole time she was Vicurious. Did I miss that?Also, I didn't understand how Vicurious got to be so big? I get that some things just take off, but to me, it was just so sudden that didn't really make it real to me in my head.

Overall, it was good. The writing style made it an easy and fast read.

My Star Rating:3 out of 5 Stars

One of the books my daughter got assigned for summer reading. I will never understand what it’s like to grow up with social media.

Loved the characters, the story, the social media aspect of it all.
Full review coming soon :)

the depiction of anxiety in this book was spot on, but the plot as a whole was just too.... ya for my taste. i don’t want to generalize and i don’t even read enough ya to be a fair critic, but i found the romance unrealistically sappy and the ending a little too cheerful. i get that it’s about finding happiness and facing fears — i’ve been there! — but a lot of things were resolved too quickly to be believable.