Girl Online, 1: The First Novel by Zoella (Girl Online Book, #1)

by Zoe Sugg

"Penny has a secret. Under the alias GirlOnline, Penny blogs her hidden feelings about friendship, boys, high school drama, her crazy family, and the panic attacks that have begun to take over her life. When things go from bad to worse, her family whisks her away to New York, where she meets Noah, a gorgeous, guitar-strumming American. 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" --

Under the alias Girl Online, Penny blogs about her life, including her panic attacks, and when things get worse, her family take her to New York, where Penny falls for a boy who has a secret that might ruin her online cover and her closest friendship.

• ISBN10: 1476797455
• ISBN13: 9781476797458
• Publish Date: 25 November 2014
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 13 March 2021
• Imprint: Atria Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[Ashley]

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

I think a lot of my lack of enjoyment for this book is my fault. I expected the book to be a bit more mature than it actually is. Even though it's YA, a lot of YA feels more mature. The main characters may be in their teens, but they often come across as level headed and more towards the "adult" side than the "young" side.

That was not the case in Girl Online.

The girl is YOUNG. She is 15 and she acts like she's somewhere in the 13-15 range. This really put me off the story because I couldn't connect with her at all. The whole thing (from the character to the writing) just felt childish. Almost more like middle grade than young adult.

Then there were other issues with it being extremely predictable, insta-love, the clumsiness got on my nerves, and the writing flip flopped from being amateurish to "okay".

I had a lot of issues with this book, but I honestly didn't hate it. It was too childish for me, but towards the end I did start to see some of the charm. It certainly wasn't a ground breaking, intense, or amazing book. It was fluffy. Sometimes fluff is alright.