Florence Given

GIRLCRUSH is a dark feminist comedy by bestselling author Florence Given.

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 Wonder Land, a social media app where people project their dream selves online. But as her online self and her offline self become more and more distanced, trauma from her past comes back to haunt and destroy her present. Eartha must make a choice: which version of herself should she kill off?

Warning this book does include storylines that some readers may find triggering.

Girlcrush

Ellie 

“Everything is coming back. All the repressed pain. I begin to relive everything my body was trying to protect me from feeling”

“I'm reminded of the beauty of desire and of the experiences I have yet to come and I have this urge to talk to someone about it immediately.“

“My life feels like a haunted horror house, tortured by reminders and flashes of the woman I was on my way to becoming.“

“What's the point in ever getting feelings for someone if this is how it feels when they're taken away from you? Their presence felt in every crevice of your apartment, the woodgrain of your soul and the sentiment in every song? The grief pours out of me from places i didn’t  know were possible. I'm grieving so much I don't know where to start or who and what to grieve first.“

“I've just felt as though the Eartha I knew and was starting to become has been shaken out of me. I feel hurt. And confused. I'm waiting to find out who the fuck I am. Other people are telling me I'm this and that and I don't know what to believe any more.' I whisper, but I want to scream.“

“The sheer weight of shame overloads my muscles and pins me down to the ground. I let myself be consumed by it and lie down on the floor.“

“How did I get to the point where texts from my best friends feel like obligatory admin as opposed to little angels in my phone sent to lighten up my day?“

“I'm reminded that I'm a person with dreams, with a purpose that matters. I think about one day owning a house filled with silly, gorgeous, beautiful things and people. I think about lying in the sun with someone I love, my skin itchy from the grass.

I think about all the people I am yet to meet and the kisses I am yet to have, about the soulmates who are yet to change the shape of my life and who I am. I think of the beautiful smell of pastries in a bakery. My favourite colours flood into my mind like a tsunami of optimism. I think about the most beautiful night of my life with Phaedra. I think of flowers and their sensuous petals. Of summer holidays that you don't want to end.”

"More than anything, I just feel scared about leaping into something new. One thing I know for certain, I never want to be in a position where I’m relying on a Man ever again. Or forgiving a man who hurts me. I’m done with them all. I want a delicious life.”

“Unfortunately, none of us realise till much too late how much we were capable of. We remain stuck in the fifth chapter of the book that is our life, living out the same mundane routine.... not realising that there are hundreds of pages left.“

“What happened during the depths of her winter? Whatever happened didn’t break her.”

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

“I've been so consumed by this messy discovery of myself that I've ghosted everyone I love this week while I've tried to make sense of it all. I think I'm bisexual. I still fancy men, but ... there's a whole other part of myself that loves women just as much. It needs exploring. It needs air. It needs to be watered, fed, tended to and nurtured, so that it can blossom into the beautiful garden I so desperately need it to grow into. The thought of actually being able to act on the thoughts and fantasies I've had over the years frightens me and turns me on at the same time. I don't chink I've ever felt so liberated.“

“Phaedra was the catalyst, but its something I have always known. A truth I've needed to fish out of myself for such a long time that when I finally ensnare it and reel it out, it lies still and whole on the bank of my new life. A truth I have always known would surface.

These feelings have been living inside me for years and as they've been growing so has my discomfort with hiding them.“

“And the universe, god, goddess, whatever you want to call it ... it rewards women like you. Women who jump into the unknown.”

“The whole point is thar they're taught to compete because women aren't as exploitable when they form bonds together. They'd figure out that male attention is not only worthless, but abundant. The girls would realise that, actually, the man isn't that great, women aren't so terrible”

“I wear this life and my relationship like an ill-ftting sweater you used to love but that's since shrunk in the wash. It no longer fits and is abrasive on my skin, but I can't give it up. It's as if I'm almost attached to this uncomfortable way of life. I fear I'd be allergic to the sensations ofsomething, or someone, new.”

this is a clear money grab it felt to me like the author didn’t have a clear outline of the plot and kept making things up as she went along and circling it back to feminism? at the last minute. i didn’t hate the main character because she was complex but because she was the opposite and just awful 

amy 


GIRLCRUSH is a dark feminist retelling of Jekyll & Hyde by bestselling author Florence Given.

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?

Warning this book does include storylines that some readers may find triggering.

Emily Perkovich

There are A LOT of 1 star reviews for this, which I think is a bit harsh. Like many readers, I found the queer world trying to be modeled here was one note and stereotyped. Like others I found it off putting that as the only NB in the book, Rose is portrayed as a copy & paste of the well-loved Shane the masc womanizer from the original L Word. For being a book about diversity promotion it didn’t feel very diverse? I think if I had enjoyed the voice more then I could maybe forgive this as an attempt at accurately portraying how bad our modern influencers (not just social media, but in the broader sense of the word) are at actually diversifying their world. This didn’t feel like that, unfortunately.

Outside of the poor handling of queer character navigation, for me this book really fell apart at the end. It started to feel unite rushed and like there were too many plot points to wrap up. Everything became muddy and void of detail especially on the resolution to the climax.

I do have positives though! This was entertaining. I didn’t find it quite “comical” as was promised, but it was at times like sitting around chatting with, maybe not your friends, but perhaps work acquaintances? The social media portrayal and the cancel culture was written far more dynamically than Eartha’s queer journey. I have never reached anything near influencer status, but I have enough followers between my 3 IG accounts to feel the heat that she experienced in that way that can make you feel like you are breaking. I also think the mental health episode actually felt very realistic, especially for someone who is emotionally stilted and probably stopped maturing whenever it was they started in their toxic relationship (if this age for Eartha was mentioned, I don’t recall it). I have far less “am I crazy?” conversations with myself now that I am older, and far more “is this my mental health or the real world?” talks, but I had extremely low lows and high highs before therapy, and before having a grasp on it I frequently was confused by what was “wrong with me”

Thank you BookSirens and Brazen for the complimentary copy.

I gave my teenage cousin Women Don't Owe You Pretty when it came out, so I thought I'd read Girlcrush to see if I should give her this too and... yeah, definitely not lol.

The way the non-binary character was spoken about felt so fetishising and uncomfortable. As an enby I don't want my cousin being taught to think of me in that way. Gave the vibe of that friend who shows off your identity to prove they're a good ally. Was so weird to read. 

A memoir on this topic would've been much better than whatever this was trying to be.

Diba

(DNF - read 50%)

I gave my teenage cousin Women Don't Owe You Pretty when it came out, so I thought I'd read Girlcrush to see if I should give her this too and... yeah, definitely not lol.

The way the non-binary character was spoken about felt so fetishising and uncomfortable. As an enby I don't want my cousin being taught to think of me in that way. Gave the vibe of that friend who shows off your identity to prove they're a good ally. Was so weird to read. 

A memoir on this topic would've been much better than whatever this was trying to be.

** spoiler alert **
           This may be the longest review I have ever posted. There are A LOT of 1 star reviews for this, which I think is a bit harsh. Like many readers, I found the queer world trying to be modeled here was one note and stereotyped. Like others I found it off putting that as the only NB in the book, Rose is portrayed as a copy & paste of the well-loved Shane, the masc womanizer from the original L Word. For being a book about a character amped up over diversity promotion it didn’t feel very diverse? I think if I had enjoyed the voice more then I could maybe forgive this as an attempt to accurately portray how bad our modern influencers (not just social media, but in the broader sense of the word) are at actually diversifying their world. This didn’t feel like that, unfortunately.

Outside of the poor handling of queer character navigation, for me this book really fell apart at the end. It started to feel chaotic and rushed, like there were too many plot points to wrap up. SPOILERS AHEAD - the assault, which Eartha herself describes as a turning point, is danced around so much even though it is blatant what has just happened at the party, that I expected there to be an uncomfy, tense account. We are witnessing a very public mental breakdown, and I cannot for a second believe that this woman (who has commented non stop about fucking and fingering and assholes and sweat and periods and cocks and every intimate thing) has an inner monologue that passively goes, oh, I smell his cologne, he was violent to me, he locked me in a room, I wonder if his ex wife knows? Void of all detail. Then the great wrap up for the book is our MC “speaking her truth” noticeably more eloquently and poetically than she has ever spoken throughout the entirety of the work. 

I do have positives though! This was entertaining. I didn’t find it quite “comical” as was promised, but it was at times like sitting around chatting with, maybe not your friends, but perhaps work acquaintances? The social media portrayal and the cancel culture was written far more dynamically than Eartha’s queer journey. I have never reached anything near influencer status, but I have enough followers between my 3 IG accounts to feel the heat that she experienced in that way that can make you feel like you are breaking. I also think the mental health episode actually felt very realistic, especially for someone who is emotionally stilted and probably stopped maturing whenever it was they started in their toxic relationship (if this age for Eartha was mentioned, I don’t recall it). I have far less “am I crazy?” conversations with myself now that I am emotionally older, and far more “is this my mental health or the real world?” talks, but I had extremely low lows and high highs before therapy, and before having a grasp on it I frequently was confused by what was “wrong with me” So that felt quite authentic, I wish it was handled with more care and not cobbled together at the end. 

Thank you BookSirens and Brazen for the complimentary review copy.

It’s difficult to articulate what I was actually expecting from this book, but I had it down as sci-fi element given the blurb describing a real vs online self and plugging in to the social media site Wonderland and killing one persona off etc. But this wasn't the case at all. 

What you really get with this one was a rise to Fame and then the downfalls of fame and having a social media account. it just felt very erratic and dramatic, and a lot of the internal monologue was used to explain how the character was moving forward but it just felt very clunky and unnatural. So much exposition for very little pay-off. Towards the end of the book, you could have just skipped to the end without reading what you skipped, and the book would still make sense.

For me personally this was a fairly disappointing read.

Ian Brakspear

It’s difficult to articulate what I was actually expecting from this book, but I had it down as sci-fi element given the blurb describing a real vs online self and plugging in to the social media site Wonderland and killing one persona off etc. But this wasn't the case at all. 

 

What you really get with this one was a rise to Fame and then the downfalls of fame and having a social media account. it just felt very erratic and dramatic, and a lot of the internal monologue was used to explain how the character was moving forward but it just felt very clunky and unnatural. So much exposition for very little pay-off. Towards the end of the book, you could have just skipped to the end without reading what you skipped, and the book would still make sense.

 

For me personally this was a fairly disappointing read.

A really interesting take on the idea of social media influencers and the power that social media has over us. 

Girlcrush

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