Click on the cover to read more about Girl Online
RATING
3.5 stars – I really enjoyed it!
SYNOPSIS
Penny Porter is clumsy, has no brain to mouth filter and tells boys that she has gas problems.
It isn’t until Penny goes with her parents and best friend Elliot to New York for Christmas that she starts seeing herself differently, or at least someone sees her differently. Noah is eighteen, on his gap year and has a deep love of music. That’s it. Or at least that’s all that Penny knows about him. Then she returns home to the UK and everything changes.
Penny and Noah fall hard and fast for each other in this first-love romance and are forced to decide whether secrets and four thousand miles will tear their relationship apart…
OPINION
I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with this novel. There was so much hype about it in the media these past few weeks that I was slightly worried that my expectations were going to be too high, therefore resulting in an awful review. But alas, this didn’t happen (yay!).
To start with the bad, unfortunately the first half of the novel- I felt- was a little bit detached and so I wasn’t able to really connect with the main character Penny. I found that the passages of text weren’t very eloquent or descriptive which made me a little frustrated with not only the novel but the characters specifically. The romance between Penny and Noah developed a little too fast for my liking, however their quick development did fit into the time frame of the plot so I can’t actually complain about that!
Moving onto the good, the second half of the novel was a different ball game completely. I fell in love with the budding romance between Noah and Penny even if I found the ‘plot twist’ unsurprising. It was as if I could literally see the development of Zoe Sugg’s writing with each page that I turned. The sentences became descriptive and the speech was suddenly more fitting to the story which made me so incredibly happy!
Because Penny was suddenly relatable, I was able to enjoy the story even more, stress over the choices she made and was just generally swept up into the lives of the characters and the story.
The addition of the blog posts that Penny writes throughout the novel allowed me as the reader to gain a different perspective of her. Reading the posts was like getting the CliffsNotes version of Penny’s life- you got most of the main details plus a little extra, but that was it. Going from reading an intense chapter that contained a direct insight into Penny’s thoughts and mind to reading the same chapter but in less than two pages in the form of a post was the perfect contrast that highlighted the difference between Penny’s online and real world. Definitely two thumbs up for this aspect Ms Sugg!
Overall, it felt as if the moment I hit the second half of the novel, I didn’t want to put it down- shaky start forgotten!
Girl Online is a novel about first romance, young love, growing up in today’s world and the struggles of both long distance friendships and relationships.
‘Til the next ramble,
Bye-bye!
DOWNLOAD/PURCHASE LINKS
http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Online-First-Novel-Zoella/dp/1476797455
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Website/Blog – www.zoella.co.uk/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/zozeebo
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/zoe.zoella
Youtube – www.youtube.com/user/zoella280390
Parchment & Print 