Book Review: 'Girl Online' by Zoe Sugg

Since the sequel to this book, Girl Online On Tour, is being published tomorrow,

I thought I'd do a review of the first, Girl Online. This is the first novel by famous YouTuber, Zoella (real name Zoe Sugg).

When Zoe announced that she was writing her first book at the beginning of 2014, I was surprised. I wasn't expecting her to do something like that as I thought she was mainly a YouTuber and wasn't interested in things like that. Despite this first thought, I couldn't be more happier for her. She seemed very excited about having her first novel out.
As the publish date for her book drew closer, I became more and more excited. Suddenly, rumours started going round that Zoe had used a 'ghost writer' for her book. A ghost writer is someone whose job it is to write material for someone else who is the author. I was shocked to hear this as I did intially thought that it would be Zoe writing this book. But then I realised it wasn't a big deal. Zoe had come up with the characters and the actual story but she was just paying someone else to write it. I realised that this was a good idea as I realised that she was busy with her first range of Zoella Beauty products and she was still uploading videos on her YouTube channel so she must not have had time to write her book.
When this book was delivered through the post, I was so excited to read it. I spent every day reading it and I even took it to college with me to read during break. 
This is Zoe's first novel so of course it was going to be based on a topic she knew about: online blogging. The main character is Penny, a 16 year old girl who blongs online under the alias 'Girl Online' to protect her identity. She sees this as a bit of fun. Unfortunately, when something goes wrong at school, her parents take her away to New York for Christmas which is where she meets Noah who is an American guitar player and they become close. However, Noah has a secret that threatens to ruin Penny's cover forever.
I'd never read a story about online blogging before so I was wondering how Zoe could create a story out of something so simple but she easily manages to do it. With Penny as her main character, who speaks in first person, we see that she is easily likeable as she is funny and always see the positive side of things even when she is embarrassed in front of the whole school and feels humiliated. She has a 'BFIS' (Best Friend In School), Megan, who is always there for Penny and supports her through everything. 
We can see that Penny has a passion for blogging as almost every chapter begins and/or ends with one of her blogposts. By including her blogposts inside the story, we see another side to Penny. We see how she truly feels about certain things going on in her life. 
I really enjoyed reading this book as it was completely different to anything I've ever read before.
This book has great characters and a really interesting story. I loved reading about Penny's true feelings via her blog as it helped me to understand her character more. This is definitely a heartfelt story with lots of funny moments too. 
I would say this is the best book to read if you enjoy blogging yourself (like me) or are a fan of Zoe's YouTube channel as this does contain aspects of her heartwarming personality. 
This book has gotten me very excited for Girl Online On Tour!
4/5

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