Review | Girl Online

So when I went on holiday, I managed to read all 4 of the books I included in my 4 Summer Reads post within those 2 weeks – I know, I read really fast. And that post got a lot of comments about what people thought of some of the books I included and also that some of you wanted to know my opinion once I had finished them all. Now that I have done just that, I am starting to write my verdict for you, and Zoe’s novel is going to be the first.

Girl Online is everywhere, it was number 1 bestseller and I can totally understand why. Zoe Sugg syndrome is taking over the teenage girls of today, why? Who knows, she’s just a very likeable person I guess! This book sold more copies than that of J.K. Rowling I do believe, in a very short space of time. Again, I can completely understand why.

At first I was really unsure because a few of my friends had started to read this long before me and said they had struggled to get into it and thought it was aimed more at the younger spectrum of Zoe’s fandom. I was really disappointed when I heard this to be honest, but I went ahead and read it anyway because Zoe has been my idol for a really long time now and I really wanted to read her first novel because it was a really proud moment for me as someone who has followed her on this journey since pretty much the beginning.

I know I’m super late to the bandwagon on this book because the second one is coming out very, very soon, but I’ve had this book for ages I just never got round to reading it with revision and exams. However, now I have, here you go!

I absolutely loved it. It’s honestly one of the best books I’ve read, honest. And I’m not just saying that because I love Zoe so much, it was totally unexpected. The blurb says that Noah has a secret that could threaten Penny’s alias but I never imagined Noah’s secret being what it was and that made the book super exciting for me.

It is really your typical teen love novel but I’m a sucker for those! I always have been! I grew up reading Jaqueline Wilson and other authors like her so this book reminded me a lot of those. I think Zoe also read a lot of Jaqueline Wilson growing up if I remember rightly, so maybe she wanted to try and recreate that kind of style in her own way, I don’t know maybe she didn’t.

I think along with anyone else who has read this book fell in love with Noah. He is just the dream boy in a love story and I think most teenage girls would fall for that character. I also felt like I could relate to Penny in some ways. Of course Penny has extreme anxiety which is where her blog started and I am lucky to not suffer from anxiety to this extremity, but the blogging thing and her not wanting people to find out about it, I could really relate to that part. When I first started my blog I didn’t want anyone to find out, Penny didn’t want anyone to know about hers either. I think most people who are blog owners probably felt this way at the very begging, or even still now. So it’s very relatable to people of the blogging world. I think that allows you to get closer to the character and become more a part of the story than just someone sitting watching from a distance.

I think it took me about 4 days to read this book in total, so you could say I enjoyed it a little bit. I honestly couldn’t take my head out of it! I don’t want to say too much about the story itself because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t yet read this incredible book, but if you haven’t I highly recommend you do.

As for the thing I said earlier about it being aimed at the younger spectrum of Zoe’s audience, I think she has had to be careful and very wary of the age of a lot of her viewers. Zoe’s videos are so popular and she has such a broad range of people watching, and a lot of them are very young. Zoe will have had to think a lot about this while she was writing this book because she can’t make it too mature as you can guarantee these younger viewers will want to read her book. However, she has still catered for the teenage viewers in my opinion, because in places it’s quite an adult/teenage love story, but not in a way that it’s inappropriate for her younger viewers. What I’m trying to say here is yes I can understand if you maybe found this book a little immature for your age if your about 15 or 16 like me, but she has of course had to be careful about the adult content she included.

As for Girl Online On Tour, I am super excited to read it and I honestly can’t wait for it to come out! Girl Online doesn’t end on a cliff-hanger as such, it just leaves you wanting to know more about the lives of Penny and Noah and what happens to them afterwards. Thank you Zoe for writing a second book and not leaving us clueless as to where the pair goes after Girl Online.

That’s about all I have to say about Girl Online but as I say, if you haven’t yet read it and you like a good teenage romance, I recommend this book to you because I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Until next time!

Have you read Girl Online? What did you think? 

Love, Becca

-xoxo

4 Summer Reads

I am a very quick reader and so I have to have a lot of books prepared to read when I go away to keep myself occupied. 

I picked 4 for this year, so I thought I'd share them with you and I will do full reviews of them when I've finished, if that is something you would all like to see! 

So the first 2 books are Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur and Girl Online by the one and only, Zoe Sugg. 

I have actually already read Love, Aubrey before but it was when I was in year 7 so that's 4 years ago now! I remember really loving the book so I wanted to take this long summer as an opportunity to re-read it, as well as reading some other books too. I would give you a brief overview of the story line but I can't actually remember too much about it other than it's about a girl who's mother left her alone, I think. Remember it really tugging on the heart strings, but I'm a sucker for sad books as you will be able to tell by the end of this post! 

Girl Online, I received this for Christmas last year and I've never got round to reading it because I wanted to finish The Maze Runner Sequel, so now I'm finished I'm going to read it! I believe this is about a girl with anxiety who starts a blog. If I'm right in thinking though, this person is not meant to be Zoe, it's just coincidental that she has chosen this plot line. I'm looking forward to reading this, ready for her second book coming out in October! 

The other 2 books I have purchased on my Kindle so I can't photograph them. 

The first one is If I Stay by Gayle Forman. I wanted to see the film really badly when it first came out, but I stopped myself because I wanted to read the book first as I have heard that the book makes it more real. However I never got round to buying it until now and I am so excited to read it! It's meant to be a weepy one, but as I said I like to have a good cry at a book. Will let you know my verdict once I'm done! 

The second one is All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. I have heard amazing things about this book, and no I didn't just buy it because Zoe recommended it which seems to be what most people are saying about anyone who buys this book! I have only heard good things about this book, I have seen it all over recently and I really wanted to give it a try. I know I'm going to cry at this one as it is all about suicide, so there's guaranteed tears. But, it's meant to be amazing for people to be able to understand mental illness which I think is so important, and so I just had to see what all the noise was about! 

I will definitely be letting you guys know my verdict on these books once I have finished because I have a feeling I'm going to love them all! 

Let me know what you thought if you've read any of these, I would love to hear what you have to say about them! No spoilers though please! 

Love, Becca

-xoxo

Summer Holiday Essentials

Today I want to list all of the things I think are 100% necessary to take on holiday whether you're only going a hundred or so miles down the country or flying across the globe. 

I'm not going to go into beauty essentials as such because I'm going to do a separate post about that which you will see very soon!

Most of these things would probably go in the hand luggage, but there probably will be a few things that would be much more suited in the suitcase. Maybe a better title for this would have been travel essentials... Oh well!

One thing that I always take on holiday is a book. I know I'm extremely late on the Girl Online bandwagon but hey, at least I'm joining it! I've had this since my birthday but with GCSEs I haven't had the time to read it! So, now that they're finished I will have plenty of time to get reading! No matter where you are in the world there is always time for reading.

I also take my Kindle. Side note: apologies for my reflection but I didn't really have another option! You might think, well why would she take that anywhere if she's already taking a book? I am a very quick reader ladies and gentlemen, so I need more than one book to keep me going! I can also go on the internet etc. on this as it's the Kindle Fire which is always a bonus, allows me to stay in contact with the world as long as I have WiFi! 

If it's a summer holiday, even if it's in the UK, you can pretty much guarantee there will be some sun at some point, well, hopefully... I always carry sunglasses around - often on top of my head which means I forget about them - because it's just satisfying to know that they are there if it gets a wee bit bright! And if you're going to a foreign country, then chances are you'll definitely need a pair of these! 

It is unbelievably hard to photograph a hat... Like so hard! But anyways, this might be more of a foreign country thing because I don't think I would need this in the UK weather at the moment, but I guess it all depends on your style! When I bought this I pictured myself in my black bikini, with my black sunglasses and this hat sitting by the pool looking fabulous... A girl can dream.

Who leaves the house without their purse? Not me! I don't go anywhere without mine anymore, often it's empty, but that's beside the point. I think most people save up a little bit of extra cash before they go away anywhere so it's important you have somewhere safe to keep it! 

I think we can all agree that these are the 3 main essentials of life in this day and age... I don't go anywhere without my phone and I don't often go anywhere without my headphones. Even if I don't use them, you can pretty much guarantee they are there somewhere, just in case. I don't really carry my charger around because if I do need to charge my phone I usually just use one of the battery packs. However, when I go away those battery packs don't last long enough so my charger has to come along too! 

And finally magazines and activity books. I feel like I'm one of the only people who actually uses activity books when travelling anymore? My favourite is criss cross but word searches are fine too! I think it just helps pass the time a little when you're travelling. Also I think magazines help for a little bit of light reading if you aren't really feeling a book, you can have some pictures to break down the text but still be reading - it's a win-win really! 

A couple of final things that I didn't photograph are my camera, obviously because I can't really take a photograph of that. If I go away anywhere for a longer period of time I will always take my camera because you never know a perfect moment for a photo until you're in that moment and you don't have a camera with you. Most devastating thing ever.  I also didn't photograph travel tablets because I don't have any to hand right now but I absolutely HAVE to have travel tablets with me if I'm going on a flight, car or train journey, boat whatever. I can't travel without them because I get really bad travel sickness unfortunately. Anyone who also suffers from travel sickness will understand my pain. I'm one of those people who feels like absolute rubbish but can't actually vomit, so it just sits there like this disgusting feeling the whole journey. It's super annoying although I'd prefer not to vomit anyway. This is getting off topic, as I was saying, I need travel tablets to feel well during a journey. They also cause drousyness which for me means that they knock me out. It's literally like you've given me a sleeping pill when I take those. It's really good actually because it means I miss most if not all of the journey! 

And that's it! These are the main essentials that I personally need to have with me when I'm travelling during summer. I believe I have a 'What's In My Summer Makeup/Wash Bag?' post coming up soon so keep your eyes peeled for that if you want to see more of the beauty side of what I take away with me.

I hope you enjoyed this post and I will see you very soon! 

Would you take any of these things on holiday?

Love, Becca

-xoxo