When it comes to new jobs linked to the digital world, I often hear parents say "If there is a generation that can create new types of jobs, it is yours", and it has never been as true as nowadays. Indeed, when talking about blogging, I have to define it as a form of online freelancing meeting a new form of entrepreneurship, where our audience can be various and from all over the world, anonymous or relatives, friendly or haters. And the same goes with vlogging, and video version of blogging. However, having a career thanks to a blog is something unbelievable for some people, and yet very accessible.
The author of Girl Online is one of the most famous and recent example in the UK, and yet, no one really knows her - or had heard of her a month ago, before a book was launched. Indeed, even though her name has been everywhere in the media for the past couple of weeks, when I ask people for their opinions on Zoe Sugg, aka YouTube sensation Zoella, most of the people look at me in a suspicious way before asking "Who?". And this might be your question as well.
 |
| Glamourmagazine.co.uk |
Zoe Sugg, 24, started her blog back in 2009 and launched a few months later her eponym YouTube channel. When the number of viewers visiting her blog increases days after days, Sugg has become famous worldwide with her videos she posts online. She was the star of a TV ad - as well as on billboards around London - celebrating the success of her channel (with more than 5M subscribers) as well as YouTube itself.
Following the fast and continuous success she has had for the past couple of years, Sugg has launched on 25 November 2014 her first novel Girl Online, which quickly became the fastest selling book of 2014, breaking the record of the highest first week sales for a debut author.
Following it, she has quickly become the center of attention of all UK media for the last couple of weeks as it was announced that Zoella was helped by a ghostwriter. Following this revelation, a lot of reviews of the book - good and bad - made their apparition in the media. I therefore decided to read the book everyone was talking about to have my own opinion and make my own review.
*
* *
Girl Online is the story of a 15-year-old girl, Penny, who lives in Bristol, England. Even though she appears to be a normal teenager, she lives a double life. To people in Bristol, she is seen as a shy students who prefers staying in the shadows of other people and take their pictures when they shine in the light. To the rest of the world, she is Girl Online, a blogger who anonymously shares her feelings with the world. But one day, she is going to meet the one person who is going to break the thick wall that stood between these two world.
.JPG)
The novel talks about a lot of things young people are going through during the puberty: anxiety, acknowledgement of people's opinions, coming out, family problems, first love, first kiss. Being written at the first person, the book puts the reader in the main character's shoes, making them feel what Penny feels, making them shadow her life.
The main reason why I think this book is slightly wrong is that it push teenagers/children to close themselves to their friends and families, where they could seek for help, and express themselves on internet, where no one can really help them. Now I know that Sugg wrote about that kind of experiences on her own blog, but internet is definitely not the safest place for a teenagers experiencing anxiety or any other problem to seek for help. And the fact that a celebrity such as Zoe Sugg, that young people love and identify to, emphases the idea of hiding feelings, emotions and problems for real people is way too wrong.
Even when the anonymous world of Girl Online meets the real world of Penny, the main character decides to stay quiet and avoid involving her parents in her real problems she shares on her fictional life.
By making it obvious that it is partly autobiographic, Sugg assure that it is easy to get thousands of followers on the first year of a blog, making her blog being a secret version of Gossip Girl that people talk about in a whisper. Sugg has common points with her character, the main one being that she shares too much and got popularity - and haters - out of it. This can make teenager think that fame is around the corner by sharing their lives online, and again, this is bad.
When it comes to the writing itself, knowing that Zoella was helped by a ghostwriter is really surprising and unbelievable - which may have been the plan all along. The feeling that I got after reading the first chapters of the book was that I was reading a fan fiction written by a 12-year-old girl on Wattpatt.
Soon after I had read the last chapters of the book, I realised that I had spent half of my time criticising the book and its style, rolling my eyes and laughing at the results of some actions that happened all over the book. But the end was the moment when I told myself that I was happy not to be a teenager anymore - as it means that I don’t have to love this book about bullying and rejection not to be bullied and rejected, the way we had to love twilight.
However, the happy ending, full of love and glitter, can make teenage girls to believe in love. To believe in a love that looks impossible on the paper but which ends up making the frontiers disappear. Making them believe in the impossible. And that is great.
If there was to be one massive positive element for this book to point out of Girl Online, I would say that it makes people believe. It makes them believe in their dreams, it makes them believes that everything will be ok, that there is light after the dark.
 |
| 20minutes.fr |
*
* *
When I have heard that some of the YouTuber team (Joe Sugg, Alfie Feyes, Tanya Burr, Jim Chapman, etc) said that they were very slow readers and could take months to read Girl Online, I must admit that I was scared. Scared of reading this book until June 2015 - but I did not. I consider myself a slow reader - an easily distracted one - and these 345 pages were the longest pages I have ever read, which I have read in two days.
I would not go as far to say that Zoe Sugg’s first novel was good for a debut author nor to say that she should stop writing. I will just say that before the second one, she should work on her style, to make it smoother, and on her confidence to avoid to take everything too personally. When a famous person writes a novel, bad reviews are always there. But when this famous person is on almost every channel and has her face printed on a 10m large billboard put in the middle of London, they should not expect to be ignored by the media. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. When being famous thanks to the media (and internet), Sugg should accept that the media will write about her in return.
And would that then mean it would be better to live in a world full of lies to make everyone happy? Or to tell them the truth in order for them to improve and get better in the future?
*
* *
• To order the book, Girl Online by Zoe Sugg (ed. Penguin): Penguin.co.uk or Amazon.co.uk
*
* *
Have a good day :)
Em xx
Em xx
You can follow me on Twitter: @ EmilieHrrmnn - and on Instagram: @ frenchiefringeblog
