Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett
2009
293 Pages
3.75/5
What's this?! A book review? Well indeed it is! I've finally finished an actual novel for the first time since June! And I'm going to review it despite the splitting migraine I have right now, so please forgive any really strange sentences that may appear. This was actually a great novel to pull me out of my reading funk. It's a book that seems like a light read and superficial at first, but you quickly learn that it's much much more than that.
The novel centers around a seventeen year-old girl who decides to keep a blog after she defers her admission into college. The book is actually told through her blog entries, so we can never actually be sure that we know the real girl behind the blog. We only know what she tells us. We quickly learn that she makes some bad decisions in life. She's extremely promiscuous, she's hurting quite a few people, and just generally engaging in a lot of self destructive behaviors. But putting this out there for all of the world to see solicits a lot of attention.
There are things about this girl that she doesn't have to say. She comes off as superficial and crude most of the time to the point where I just wanted to punch her. But as you read on, she drops hints that life is not as fantastic as she claims it is. She's looking for love in all the wrong places. This book has been described as a modern day Lolita, and I can see that to a point. She frequently sleeps with older men, drinks, smokes, does drugs, etc. But there is a lot of hurt there. There's abuse in her past that she touches on. There's a horrible relationship with her father who is an alcoholic. It's understandable that she would search for love in any way that she can find it.
Now I did have a problem with this book at first, and I don't know if I'm ok with it now or not. At first, I read the book as "you can't trust any blogger." That you never get to know the true person behind a blog, and to a point I think that's true. I think that there are thing that us bloggers will never know about each other, but at the same time, I feel like some of my blogging friends know me better than some of my in person friends. The main character in the novel says "Only on the internet can you have so many friends and be so lonely." That bugged me. I've talked to some of my blogging friends on the phone, I've shared emails and postcards with them, and I plan to meet them one day! Having said all of this, I don't think that Allison Burnett meant this book to mean that all bloggers are lonely people just looking for love. I just think she meant that this character was. And she was indeed.
I do have to say that the ending of this book had me going "wow!" I totally didn't see it coming. Would I recommend it? Yep! I thought it has a lot more to offer than it seems in the opening pages. That becomes obvious as the pages progress. The book will be released on August 11th, so only a few more days to wait! In the meantime, check out the trailer...it's really cool.
Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett
2009
293 Pages
3.75/5
What's this?! A book review? Well indeed it is! I've finally finished an actual novel for the first time since June! And I'm going to review it despite the splitting migraine I have right now, so please forgive any really strange sentences that may appear. This was actually a great novel to pull me out of my reading funk. It's a book that seems like a light read and superficial at first, but you quickly learn that it's much much more than that.
The novel centers around a seventeen year-old girl who decides to keep a blog after she defers her admission into college. The book is actually told through her blog entries, so we can never actually be sure that we know the real girl behind the blog. We only know what she tells us. We quickly learn that she makes some bad decisions in life. She's extremely promiscuous, she's hurting quite a few people, and just generally engaging in a lot of self destructive behaviors. But putting this out there for all of the world to see solicits a lot of attention.
There are things about this girl that she doesn't have to say. She comes off as superficial and crude most of the time to the point where I just wanted to punch her. But as you read on, she drops hints that life is not as fantastic as she claims it is. She's looking for love in all the wrong places. This book has been described as a modern day Lolita, and I can see that to a point. She frequently sleeps with older men, drinks, smokes, does drugs, etc. But there is a lot of hurt there. There's abuse in her past that she touches on. There's a horrible relationship with her father who is an alcoholic. It's understandable that she would search for love in any way that she can find it.
Now I did have a problem with this book at first, and I don't know if I'm ok with it now or not. At first, I read the book as "you can't trust any blogger." That you never get to know the true person behind a blog, and to a point I think that's true. I think that there are thing that us bloggers will never know about each other, but at the same time, I feel like some of my blogging friends know me better than some of my in person friends. The main character in the novel says "Only on the internet can you have so many friends and be so lonely." That bugged me. I've talked to some of my blogging friends on the phone, I've shared emails and postcards with them, and I plan to meet them one day! Having said all of this, I don't think that Allison Burnett meant this book to mean that all bloggers are lonely people just looking for love. I just think she meant that this character was. And she was indeed.
I do have to say that the ending of this book had me going "wow!" I totally didn't see it coming. Would I recommend it? Yep! I thought it has a lot more to offer than it seems in the opening pages. That becomes obvious as the pages progress. The book will be released on August 11th, so only a few more days to wait! In the meantime, check out the trailer...it's really cool.
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