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| Taken by me - Instagram: amy_96_ |
Hello my lovelies, recently I've had enough time again to read books, something which I found impossible to do whilst studying for my A Levels. On the odd occasion that I did have time to read, I constantly had my mind on other things which made concentrating on the words in front of me such a huge task that reading just wasn't enjoyable anymore. However, with me having so much free time this summer I thought I'd give reading another go and opted for a book which has been sat on my bookshelf for quite a while, that being Girl Online by Zoe Sugg.
I first attempted to read this book way back at the start of 2015 after I received it as a gift for my eighteenth birthday. After reading the first chapter I stopped because I felt as though I was wasting my time as the way in which the book had been written was clearly aimed at a much younger audience; one I knew I didn't fit into. As an eighteen year old who was studying both English Language and English Literature at A Level I was immediately put off from the start as there were grammatical errors and spelling mistakes as early on as the first page. It was this along with what I read to be an overly basic and poor portrayal of anxiety and panic attacks and predictable plot sequence that I placed the book back on my bookshelf and left it there for the months to come.
This summer I was determined to fall back in love with literature and reading once more as being told what I should and shouldn't be reading for English at A Level really got me down and made me not even want to pick up a book. My choice of novel was between the first Game of Thrones book and Girl Online and since I wanted something easy and light to read I opted for the latter.
I wasn't hugely impressed with the first few chapters of the novel, I'm going to be honest, but once Penny and Noah (the two main characters) finally met in New York I began to look past the slightly dumbed down writing style and enjoy the story line a lot more. It made me really nostalgic to read a book aimed at young, teenage girls, something that I too would have read at the ages of twelve and thirteen. It was interesting for me to read something that I know I would have absolutely loved when I was younger because I could think back to how I used to interpret those novels aimed at typical teenage girls and how my opinion and thoughts vary now. As many books written for this audience have a running theme of first love I could fully grasp exactly how the characters were feeling, something I know for a fact I didn't appreciate and grasp when I was a younger teenager.
Without giving too much away, I was unable to put this book down as I reached the last one hundred or so pages. The scandal surrounding Penny and Noah's relationship in New York coupled with the things she had written on her, what was supposed to be anonymous blog, sparked a media frenzy as it was said that Noah had cheated on his girlfriend with Penny. I'm going to say no more just in case any of you guys want to read it and I end up giving the whole thing away but for me this was the most exciting part of the book and I was really upset when I turned the last page.
Overall I really enjoyed Girl Online and I've already preordered a signed copy of Girl on Tour because I'm such a fangirl... -.- I'd definitely recommend it to younger teenagers and even older people if you want an easy going novel to read.
I also filmed a video discussing the points above and a few others over on my YouTube channel. You can view it below.
