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A review by mynameismarines
Girl Online by Zoe Sugg
1.0
Oooof.
I've never watched any of Zoella's videos and mostly picked it up because of the 2-3 days of, "OMG A GHOSTWRITER?" drama I saw unfolding on Twitter. My impression was kind of that this had been a sensation and people felt cheated because probably Zoe Sugg didn't write it.
Truly, everyone should be up in arms if Zoe paid anyone to write this story for her. To say that it is cliche is putting it mildly. It's not even cliches done right. It feels like a stuffy, old fogey approach to YA cliches. It feels like a completely out of touch person's view of what's popular in YA. Someone who maybe Googled, "what's popular in YA?" who hasn't actually read any of it for themselves.
For example, the main love interest has a crooked smile, OF COURSE. But when it finally shows up, it's not a regular lopsided smile, but it's lopsided and he has "several" dimples. SEVERAL. Like now you are imagining some weirdo with a half frozen face and three holes on either side of his mouth. WTF is going on?
The blog entries were painful. In fact, all of the writing was painful because it was all overly simplistic language. While Penny is young at 15, 15 is not 10 and most of this felt like it could've been written by a 10 year old. Anyone acquainted with blogging or Internet communities probably scoffed at the idea that Girl Online had thousands of followers. Hahahaha. Thousands of followers.
Penny was a shell of a character. She had curly hair! and liked taking pictures! and was clumsy! SO CLUMSY! and had 0 self confidence! and a gay best friend! and an unrequited crush! DID WE MENTION CLUMSY?! Her self worth is almost entirely based on this one dude she knows for a week who tells her she's real pretty like. Don't you just love when girls in books base their self-esteem on boys?
It can't go unsaid either: Penny is 15 and Noah is 18. Just barely getting by the statutory rape laws in New York, but that shouldn't be something you want said about your central love story...
The plot is basically Penny falls down a lot and then goes to New York where she falls in love with an 18 year old who is also famous and problems are almost always solved within two pages and they kiss a lot, the end.
I thought about rating this two stars because I've definitely read worse, but those were actively worse. This kind of matches it for how obviously it was thrown together, hitting all the highlights of what the young'ins might like. To give it two stars and thus say, "it was okay," wouldn't feel honest. This was not okay; I want my money back.
I've never watched any of Zoella's videos and mostly picked it up because of the 2-3 days of, "OMG A GHOSTWRITER?" drama I saw unfolding on Twitter. My impression was kind of that this had been a sensation and people felt cheated because probably Zoe Sugg didn't write it.
Truly, everyone should be up in arms if Zoe paid anyone to write this story for her. To say that it is cliche is putting it mildly. It's not even cliches done right. It feels like a stuffy, old fogey approach to YA cliches. It feels like a completely out of touch person's view of what's popular in YA. Someone who maybe Googled, "what's popular in YA?" who hasn't actually read any of it for themselves.
For example, the main love interest has a crooked smile, OF COURSE. But when it finally shows up, it's not a regular lopsided smile, but it's lopsided and he has "several" dimples. SEVERAL. Like now you are imagining some weirdo with a half frozen face and three holes on either side of his mouth. WTF is going on?
The blog entries were painful. In fact, all of the writing was painful because it was all overly simplistic language. While Penny is young at 15, 15 is not 10 and most of this felt like it could've been written by a 10 year old. Anyone acquainted with blogging or Internet communities probably scoffed at the idea that Girl Online had thousands of followers. Hahahaha. Thousands of followers.
Penny was a shell of a character. She had curly hair! and liked taking pictures! and was clumsy! SO CLUMSY! and had 0 self confidence! and a gay best friend! and an unrequited crush! DID WE MENTION CLUMSY?! Her self worth is almost entirely based on this one dude she knows for a week who tells her she's real pretty like. Don't you just love when girls in books base their self-esteem on boys?
It can't go unsaid either: Penny is 15 and Noah is 18. Just barely getting by the statutory rape laws in New York, but that shouldn't be something you want said about your central love story...
The plot is basically Penny falls down a lot and then goes to New York where she falls in love with an 18 year old who is also famous and problems are almost always solved within two pages and they kiss a lot, the end.
I thought about rating this two stars because I've definitely read worse, but those were actively worse. This kind of matches it for how obviously it was thrown together, hitting all the highlights of what the young'ins might like. To give it two stars and thus say, "it was okay," wouldn't feel honest. This was not okay; I want my money back.