The book started off pretty good, despite following binaries. Halfway in everything seemed a bit rushed, thoughts/storylines not completely finished, wishie washie. I know this is meant to be a story about a messy character, but you're given no reason at all to care about this selfish, awful woman from the start of the novel.

It was messy, the text message formatting in the book frustrated me and was hard to read. Every now and then there was "Directors Notes" sections which was so strange and added absolutely nothing to the book other than making it feel like a weird half script half book. yes, i read the notorious livetweet thread instead of reading the actual book (if you can call it that) itself. i am absolutely fine with that. in fact, i think i could have gone my entire life without being aware of this book's existence and been fine with it. alas, i decided not to know peace. I’m sure Florence would say that sentiments like these are exactly what she’s talking about in the overarching message of the book but like, I’m sorry, you had the makings of a book handed to you on a silver platter and you still managed to make it an unbearably frustrating (for all the wrong reasons) read. In Given's debut novel, we follow Eartha on a wild, weird and seductive modern-day exploration as she commences life as an openly bisexual woman whilst also becoming a viral sensation on Wonderland, a social media app where people project their dream selves online."

Florence Given released her first fiction novel, Girl Crush, last week (9th August). And it’s safe to say she probably won’t be hailed as this generation’s Jacqueline Wilson anytime soon. I’ve been asked if I’d like to go into politics. No! I’d be awful at it. I know my strengths. I’m a writer, I’m an artist. And I’m good at talking. But I don’t want to be a politician. I want to write books for the rest of my life.

In Given’s debut novel, we follow Eartha on a wild, weird and seductive modern-day exploration as she commences life as an openly bisexual woman whilst also becoming a viral sensation on Wonderland, a social media app where people project their dream selves online. The distance between her online and offline self grows further and further apart until something dark happens that leads her into total self-destruction, forcing Eartha to make a choice; which version of herself should she kill off? Ongoing Covid restrictions, reduced air and freight capacity, high volumes and winter weather conditions are all impacting transportation and local delivery across the globe. Life is short, dump them.” A few years ago, whenever a friend was telling me about the latest stupidly unthinking thing their boyfriend had done, I would unleash this maxim or, alternatively, “it’s a wonderful day to dump him”. I cannot claim to have come up with these epigrams, however. They were coined by a different woman born in 1998 — the influencer, artist and bestselling writer Florence Given. The reflections and commentary on so many topics were insightful. It put a lot of things into perspective, especially regarding the use of social media. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty was a concise, witty, compassionate guide to navigating feminism. Did it achieve what you wanted it to?The only part of this book that felt genuine was Eartha's experiences with the darker side of social media. The pain that Florence clearly went through at the hands of theslumflower's followers was awful to read through Eartha's experience (let's all agree not to comment/message people on social media and tell them to k*** themselves? maybe?).

In 2018, she launched a petition to cancel Netflix's controversial fat-shaming series 'Insatiable', it gained over 300,000 signatures in a matter of days. The story became global news and she appeared on many news networks across the US and UK, as well as being interviewed for various publications including Huffington Post and Grazia. This is the perfect example of someone who is successful in one area believing that that success and skill will translate into others…… and it did not.

Marketing Plan

Erst im Juni habe ich mein erstes Buch der Autorin gelesen, die dafür ja auch sehr gehyped wurde: "Frauen schulden dir gar nichts." "Girlcrush" wiederum hat online weniger Aufmerksamkeit bekommen. Das hängt wahrscheinlich unter anderem mit dem Genrewechsel zusammen, zumindest ist das meine Theorie. "Girlcrush" ist nämlich kein Sachbuch bzw. Ratgeber, sondern ein Roman. Und noch dazu nicht unbedingt der einfachste Roman, den ich je gelesen habe. Was jetzt für mich nicht unbedingt etwas Negatives ist, ist halt einfach nicht mehr für alle Menschen einfach so zugänglich. Spannend fand ich die Entscheidung des Verlags, hier tatsächlich alles strikt durchzugendern. Machte für mich auch voll Sinn und passte zu Eartha, aus deren Sicht wir die Geschichte erzählt bekamen. Es passte so gut, dass mir erst im Nachhinein auffiel, dass das nicht so im englischen Original stehen kann. Die meisten Bezeichnungen sind im Englischen auch so schon genderneutral (zumindest meines Wissens nach), deswegen muss während der Übersetzung diese Entscheidung gefallen sein. Wie gesagt, ich fand das super spannend. Und es machte mir auch Lust, mal das Original in die Hand zu nehmen, um zu sehen, wie das denn dort geschrieben wurde und ob mir dort überhaupt irgendwas auffällt. Some of the things I liked about this book were the discussions about the internet and the complexities of being bisexual, even within the very lgbtqia+ community, as the character describes either feeling like people judge her for being too gay or not gay enough.