My Life as a Hashtag / Gabrielle Williams / Allen & Unwin / 2017 / ISBN 9781760113681 / 279 Pages / Young Adult
Purchase Link
Book Blurb –
What’s a girl to do when her parents have split up; her mum’s trawling Tinder; and one of her best friends has decided not to invite her to the biggest party of the year, which she then has to watch unfold on everyone else’s social media?
If you’re a girl called MC, you get mad as hell, that’s what you do.
But what begins as one girl’s private, no-holds-barred rant soon snowballs in the most public way ever.
A novel for anyone who’s ever wished they didn’t press send.
My Thoughts –
I have been hearing about this book for a while now and have wanted to read it since I have been able to get my hands on it and now that I have, I don’t know why I was really rushing. I understand the hype that surrounded this book. The cover is great and vibrant and colourful, the impression of the book makes you want to dig right in and the book is from an author who has other books. I think it was just a little bit underwhelming in the end.
The story follows MC, Marie-Claude, and a couple of her close-knit friends as they go to school. Then just like in real life, a girl gets a crush on a boy, tells her friends not to touch him, and before you know it MC and her friends are not seeing eye to eye on a lot of things. You see MC hung out with the off-limit boys and has caused a lot of trouble because of it. As a knock-on effect, her friend that asked her not to go near him does not invite her to her big party where everyone is invited. So, what does MC do instead? That’s right, blurt out all her hurt feelings online, where she thinks she can hide it from everyone she knows. But then one thing leads to another and MC’s post are found, make worldwide headlines and her life and friends life is turned upside down. Consequence after consequence MC and her friends all learn the mistakes and consequences that come with bullying.
“A torrent of noise from deep down inside of me hurled out. Warning the world that I was mad as hell. And there was a fair chance I wasn’t going to take it anymore” page 115
I understand the importance and hype of this book, I really do, I just didn’t connect with it all that well as I was reading it. So, the main thing that happens in this book is bullying. It’s kind of the books theme and it runs with it, not face to face bullying, but rather online bullying and the things that happen online and is classified as bullying is a lot. And I think the way that the bullying is portrayed is great and its consequence because there aren’t a lot of books out there that talk about it the way that this does book. It makes online bullying very realistic for the reader.
But it’s pretty much the only thing that happens. The rest, her mother on Tinder, happens for like three pages and then forgotten. A few other things happen with her father and brother, but like the mother, they only happen to break up the bullying into edible pieces and it feels like they are only thrown in for the sake of it. The writing is great. The concept is great. I just find it unbalanced and rather an underwhelming read in the end. It comes full circle and has a happy ending when I feel like the book would have worked out a lot better if there was a different ending.
If you like a story about girls being girls, reading about how bullying can affect a person’s life, then this is the book for you.
I give this book 3.0 out of 5 Booky Stars!
You can grab a copy of this book from links on the right-hand side of this blog or from the link directly under the picture.
Stick around…
♥ GWAP
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