There are some “directors notes” which plays out more like a movie than a book (I listened on audiobook and finished with reading it - it worked well on audio but was confusing in the book).

which is why it's frustrating to me that people are responding to this like "the characters were all queerphobic stereotypes (except eartha, obvs; it wasn't hard to flesh her out since she is actually a real person), however interesting exploration of how men are a plague on this earth but bisexuals with boyfriends are valid, 3*" because what exactly were you expecting? I started this book thinking it would be a story about a girl who realises she is bisexual and would begin exploring the world of dating women and stumble upon some Internet fame. It isn’t inspirational, it’s normal, and wouldn’t garner anywhere near as much attention as Florence claims it would in this book. despite being a self-insert character who makes collages for the internet and is the 'voice of a generation' (lol) eartha is also surrounded by graffiti'd given-isms such as 'maybe it's a girl crush, maybe you're queer,' a slogan popularised by given on her own instagram and to which eartha replies 'now THAT'S fucking cool. Why does Eartha get sooooo many followers overnight in comparison to how many views and likes she gets on her video.It's not all doom and gloom, I did devour the book in a few days, I laughed out loud at a couple of bits and I enjoyed Eartha as a character. I felt like there wasn’t any closure with regards to relationships (Phaedra, Rose, her mom) in the end. As a novel about queerness, it is stuck in clichés as well: The story is full of lesbians who hate men and think that their personal freedom is rooted in the fact that they don't have sex with them. And I couldn't tell if Given was meant to be poking fun at the "all men are trash" feminists or what, but man vs.

It felt like it was trying to tackle too much sometimes and I’m not quite sure what the point was in the end, but maybe that’s a me problem. I wanted everything to work out but in a way, I'm happy it didn't because that really brought the message of the book forward. The book describes social media as curated lies and takes that idea to a whole other level in the second part of the book. The storyline became repetitive and boring and I ended up completely skipping the last 40 pages because I couldn’t be bothered with Eartha and her flapping about.The plot holes and pacing were all over the place, like I get that Eartha went viral but then the amount of followers she was gaining and/or losing per week and the "perks of influencer life" she was receiving in the amount of time that seemed to pass made no sense. Bi-erasure bezeichnet die Tendenz von Menschen und Medien, Bisexualität zu verdrängen und als nicht-existent darzustellen. The side characters in the book were also amazing, particularly Rose, I think they were my favourite. I wish I had known more about the book going into it so I wouldn’t have been as surprised about the premise. 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.

the fact that nobody would go viral and stay popular for long for coming out as bisexual aside- i actually think that this book has committed worse crimes; it’s terribly written and the epitome of white queer feminism. 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. 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”. Girl Crush is, or intends to be, many things: a guide for young women in bad relationships, an exploration of queer dating culture, a cautionary tale about the pressures of social media, an anti-‘cancel culture’ novel, a dystopian sci-fi, a serious treatment of sexual assault.The book takes some turns and has some really interesting plot twists, showing the down sides of living your life completely online. Eartha even gushes over the “Maybe it’s a girl crush” line after she finds it graffitied on a wall, a move so dazzlingly self-satisfied that Philip Roth must have grudgingly rotated in his grave. She shares bits of her life online, as she is discovering more about herself as a bisexual woman, but things eventually start going sideways. the fact that both of these plot lines co-exist in this book is so fucking laughable i can tell that nobody took the time of the day to read the first draft of this twice.

Sharing the exciting news on Instagram, Florence wrote: "Excited to reveal the COVER AND PLOT for my debut fiction; GIRLCRUSH. Hot, dark story” suggests a sexy vampire lady keeping you locked in her basement, but the breezy sex comedy of the book’s middle third is sharply divorced from the book’s ‘dark’ content, which is very serious and not remotely sexy. The bi rep in this book is awful and purposefully problematic because of the plot, but it still reads as though this is a lesbian girl who hasn’t found herself yet. And the summary says we follow Eartha "as she commences life as an openly bisexual woman" but she is very quickly told that she needs to "choose a side", so while the text does acknowledge that biphobia, it's misleading to say she's living as an openly bisexual woman.I’ve read books with “influencer” characters and they’re almost caricatures of themselves so it was interesting to read the Eartha’s before and ‘becoming’.