Review | All The Bright Places

Another book that I included in my 4 Summer Reads post which I read on my 2 week holiday was All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. I had heard not only Zoe, but many other people saying how good this book was and how important it is to the public views on mental health, so I knew I had to read it.

I don’t suffer from any mental health illnesses myself, but I have come across people in my life who do and I have seen stories on the news etc. about people all over the world with mental health illnesses and I knew how awful it can end for people or how hard it can be to live with. I think Jennifer hits the nail on the head with this book, it shows exactly how hard mental illness is to deal with as well as the extreme result of people going without the help and support they truly needed.

This book follows the story of Theodore Finch and Violet Markey, 2 people who both suffer from mental illnesses and they meet on the top of a clock tower, where they are both about to take their own life. That’s about all I’m going to say about the actual story line because 1. I could never do the story justice trying to tell it myself and 2. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who has not yet read it and would like to.

The relationship between the 2 characters grows throughout the book, and you feel like you are in that story with them, not just a reader. You get so emotionally attached to the characters in this book it is impossible to put the book down. Every chapter ends with you wanting to move onto the next straight away, because you’re constantly wanting to know more about the 2.

Another thing I love about this book is that it swaps between Theodore and Violet’s point of view throughout the whole story, so it isn’t just from one person’s perspective. You get to know both sides of the story and I think that allows you to become really involved with both Violet and Theodore, because you know what is going on in both their minds, not just one. I think that’s what made this book really interesting for me because most books are just from one person’s point of view or from the point of view on the outside, so you never really get to see inside the mind of more than one character. I think for a book about mental illness this is really important because you see the way the person acts in front of another person, but you also see how that person is feeling inside at each moment which is something totally unique.

Overall I absolutely loved this book and I think it took me about 3 or 4 days to read which shows I clearly enjoyed it as I honestly picked it up at every free moment I had, and then proceeded to struggle to put it down!

This is probably one of my favourite books now and I would definitely read it again, huge recommendation!

Have you read All The Bright Places? What did you think?

Love, Becca

-xoxo

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