Florence Given

I actually put this book on hold at the library on a whim, which I admit was fueled by the 'lgbt' tag and the front cover, which called Girlcrush a 'hot, dark story'. Let's clear that up right now: it was neither dark nor hot, by any stretch of the imagination.

I did see what the author was intending; a story about how women use any power they've gained to protect the sexual trespasses of more powerful men, through the lens of a hapless and naively girlish main character caught up in new-fangled internet stardom. It hopes to examine the way media manipulates and uses young women, discarding them with the moniker 'crazy' and the way that we're all complicit in it, as well as corporate manipulation, queerness, and commodification. I've read a few novels attempting to tackle social media, some with more success than others. Unfortunately, Girlcrush falls significantly into the unsuccessful category.

However, I don't think Florence Given succeeded in any of her intentions. To start with, Girlcrush felt hopelessly dated, like it was out of 2005 or something. The central conceit is that everyone is plugged into Wonderland, a social media site with aspects of Livejournal, Twitter, Instagram, MySpace, you name it. I think this book is set in an alternate England where Wonderland was the first social media site, started in 2018 (the story takes place in the near future of 2030) but none of that is really made clear.

I had never heard of the author before this book, but when I looked her up, it seems she was born in 1998, making her only 24 at the time of this interview, and presumably even younger when writing this book. It shows. She was still in diapers when Livejournal started, was only in kindergarten when MySpace started.

Essentially, I think this was a really silly book that was reaching for several large concepts but failing to achieve any of them.… (mer)