Synopsis:
What’s it like to grow up online and have every tantrum, every spot – even your first period – broadcast to hundreds of thousands of followers?
Most parents try to limit their kids’ online exposure. But not Eva’s. Her parents run a hugely successful YouTube channel, and Eva is the star of the show. But Eva is getting sick of being made to pose in stupid mum-and-daughter matching outfits for sponsored posts. The freebies aren’t worth the teasing at school. And when an intensely humiliating “period party” post goes viral, Eva is outraged. She’s going to find a way to stop the channel, even if she has to sabotage it herself.
Review:
Girl (In Real Life) has been on my radar for years now and I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. It took me no time at all to get through and it kept me entertained the entire time.
This was such an interesting take on influencers. I’ve read a few books about influencers and for the most part, they’ve been about teens that want to be in the spotlight. However, this time you see it from the perspective of a young teen girl who’s parents are family vloggers. Which raises a huge question: should parents be uploading videos of their children online without their consent? It’s a trick one isn’t it?
In this case, I say they absolutely should not be. Eva tells her parents multiple times that she doesn’t want to be filmed, even on camera and how do they handle this situation? They put it in their videos and make jokes about it. Personally, I think they deserved everything they got (without giving spoilers). Yes, what happened was very over the top but Eva should never have apologised for it, her parents should have apologised to her.
Eva is a very young teen (thirteen) so, obviously, she makes some mistakes. However, I didn’t find these mistakes annoying in the slightest. I really felt sorry for her the entire time. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how embarrassing it would be to have the entire world know you’ve started your period. As an adult, talking about periods doesn’t faze me, but as a teen it is pretty embarrassing even though it shouldn’t be.
Books that tackle the darker side of social media are always so interesting to me. I had social media while in secondary school, but this was when Instagram first came around and it was fairly wholesome and ‘vloggers’ didn’t really exist. I can’t imagine what it is like to be in school with social media today.
Girl (In Real Life) was pretty short, so it didn’t delve into this topic as much as it could have, but what it did do, was great. I’m glad this book was fairly short as it would have gotten too repetitive after a while. I’d highly recommend checking this out!
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Like this post? Why not read this one too: To Be Read: ARC Update // June 2024
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