Book Review: Girl Online by Zoe Sugg and Siobhan Curham

Girl Online by Siobhan Curham, Zoe Sugg
Series: Girl Online #1
Published by Penguin on November 25th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 352
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher

I had no idea GirlOnline would take off the way it has - I can't believe I now have 5432 followers, thanks so much! - and the thought of opening up to you all about this is terrifying, but here goes...

Penny has a secret.

Under the alias GirlOnline, she blogs about school dramas, boys, her mad, whirlwind family - and the panic attacks she's suffered from lately. When things go from bad to worse, her family whisks her away to New York, where she meets the gorgeous, guitar-strumming Noah. Suddenly Penny is falling in love - and capturing every moment of it on her blog.

But Noah has a secret too. One that threatens to ruin Penny's cover - and her closest friendship - forever.

Girl Online was written by YouTube star Zoella and controversially, also the ghostwriter Siobhan Curham. I completely get why readers were upset because there being a ghostwriter involved was not clearly disclosed. They’ve added her name to the Goodreads page but she’s still not on the hard copies. Nonetheless, I went into this book trying to keep an open mind. Girl Online is about a girl with anxiety who shares her thoughts on her blog. She goes by the anonymous name; GirlOnline. But of course, drama stirs and secrets aren’t easy to keep.

Now, before I go into all the negative things, I just want to say that I did like this book overall. I can tell that the message Zoe Sugg wanted to put across was positive. Many girls who are a fan of her are probably able to closely relate the the main character, Penny. The story also flowed adequately which allowed me to get through this book rather fast.

But. I did not enjoy the writing. Writing the story in first person perspective was a bad idea in this case because the author/s couldn’t capture the essence of Penny’s anxiety. When you write in first person, you have to be able to make the character come to life. You have to remember to show not tell. I’m not a writer and even I know that this wasn’t done well enough. Penny’s anxiety sometimes came off as ignorance rather than actual anxiety. She also seemed A LOT younger than she actually was. I think she was meant to be around 16 but she seemed more like 12.

Futhermore, all the ‘twists and turns’ were pretty clear to me. Everything just seemed very cliche. You could probably work out the ending with the first third of the book and the synopsis. And even when you don’t, when the twist comes, it doesn’t surprise you. You can also read my post about how I thought the relationship between Penny and one of her friends was over-dramatised. This friendship also contributed to the obvious ending.

So like I said before, I did enjoy this book. I don’t regret reading it and I definitely didn’t hate it. However, I’d advise people who can’t deal with bad writing to stay away from this. If you’re still young and you’ve had issues with bullying or anxiety, I think reading this would be a good experience. Also, if you’re a (anonymous) blogger, then reading a book from a blogger’s perspective is really fun.

How do you feel about ghostwriting? Would you read this book if you haven’t already?

The post Book Review: Girl Online by Zoe Sugg and Siobhan Curham appeared first on Laura Plus Books.