My pussy opens up like a rosebud at the sensation of her touch.” Sorry, but this is a REAL line from the book. It sounds like a 30-year-old man trying to sext like a poet. However, the writing was choppy and hard to read. 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. 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. woman language made me really uncomfortable and it sort of felt like Rose using they/them pronouns was just thrown in to soften the "all men are trash, women are best" language. Like people perform gender in all sorts of ways but Rose very much felt written as a butch lesbian who's pronouns got changed at the last minute.

There are parts of this book that were so ridiculous that it made me angry (why had she never heard of an INCEL? I know that biphobia is a thing but why are people acting like it's so ALIEN?). Is there really anything else to say? Florence Given introduced Florence Given into Florence Given’s literary universe. The final act of girlbossification. AND SHE CALLED HERSELF “COOL”. 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. The main character Eartha is in her mid 20s in 2030 and somehow a VOICE OF A GENERATION for drunkenly announcing that she is bisexual on social media (wow?). She's been friends with Rose (a non binary lesbian who has slept with every woman in the city) since high school. They didn't even need to come out as gay or non-binary because "the way they would recline into chairs with their legs wide open did that for them". I actually don't have words for how much I hate this line and how detrimental it is for non-binary people who aren't androgynous looking people who take up space like men so I'm just going to leave it there for you to reflect on. I’ve always been a little confused by how ‘Generation Z’ gets talked about nowadays, particularly since I am, apparently, one of them. (The cutoff seems to be somewhere between 1995 and 1997, which puts me, a 25-year-old PhD student, and my partner, a 27-year-old lecturer, in perplexing adjacency to the term ‘TikTok teen’.) But there’s clearly a thriving market for people who purport to be a voice for Gen Z, both for the sake of Zoomers who want guidance and relatable media, and for the sake of non-Zoomers who want to understand what interests and concerns young people.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. So it's no surprise there's plenty of hype around her debut novel Girlcrush, published on the 9 August and set to be one of the best books of 2022. Girlcrush tells the story of Eartha, who embarks on a journey of sexual exploration as an openly bisexual woman who becomes embroiled in a dangerous online world.

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. 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. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty was a concise, witty, compassionate guide to navigating feminism. Did it achieve what you wanted it to?

She SELF-REFERENCES!!!

This was my first Florence Given book. And it was amazing. I absolutely loved it. Our main character Eartha is in an unhappy relationship with a guy. At the beginning of the book she's learning more and more about her sexuality. Her best friend Rose (aka a legend) helps and supports her and is hands down my favorite character in this book. However the main part of the book is centered around Wonderland. It's a fictional social media platform in the book which is a bit similar to insta (but not quite). For some reason Eartha goes viral on that platform and we follow her on this new journey. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin.

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." It was also very affirming to read a book that had a non-binary character that didn't have a big moment where they have to profess their identity, The reader simply discovers that Rose uses they/them pronouns. Florence was handed the keys to the kingdom here and yet, this book was undoubtedly one of the worst things I’ve ever read. If Florence wasn’t Florence, this manuscript wouldn’t even have made it past the assistant’s desk at the publishing firm let alone onto bookshelves globally. Basically, Florence uses the “F” slur far too comfortably throughout the novel, when it wasn’t ever a word for queer women to reclaim. Phrases like “d**e daddy” and “a random butch in leather” have pissed people off, too. The general consensus seems to be that Florence – a bisexual woman – has massively reduced her lesbian characters down to stereotypes.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. This author has tried to do something pretty wonderful; use their voice to promote feminism, queerness, bisexuality and show us that social media is detrimental to our health and well-being… and that the world is still controlled by men. My friends have never spoken to me about their weight. We openly talk about sex we have, we openly talk about masturbation, and we’re very honest about our feelings with one another. We say no when we want to. But it is also because my friends are queer or they’re bisexual.