Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett

Title:  Undiscovered Gyrl

Author:  Allison Burnett

Paperback: 293 pages (ARC)

ISBN:  9780307473127

From the back cover:

Only on the internet can you have so many friends and be so lonely.

• We’re all famous in our own minds.
• Complete honesty is a complete lie.
• What’s worse than keeping a shameful secret?
• All sex has consequences, most of them dire.
• Don’t read my life.  Go live your own!

“Imagine an 18-year-old Lolita, updated to the 21st century, blogging her own provocative adventures.  By turns charming and crude, disturbingly reckless and achingly tender, Undiscovered Gyrl seduces…  Shot through with teenage yearning for ‘true love,’ each page vibrates with the quicksilver spirit of youth.  As we follow the narrator on her ever-darkening journey, questions arise about voyeurism and identity in an age of cyber-anonymity.  Allison Burnett’s masterful page-turner lingers long after the last page.” -Rachel Resnick, author of Love Junkie

When I saw the banner for this Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett in Shelf Awareness, I was hyper-excited to get my hands on the book, and when I got a positive reply to my email requesting a copy to review, I couldn’t contain myself.  It looked interesting and like one of those books you just can’t put down, especially for someone nosey… like me.

So, how did the book hold up to my anticipation?

Honestly, I was surprised by the book.  It’s set up as a blog-to-book, and in it you watch as the narrator (the definition of the “unreliable narrator” to be sure) grows as a blogger, and disintegrates in some ways as a person.  The idea of being able to be completely open in the anonymity is, at first, a relief and exciting thing for her, later it seems to be something that pushes her to more extreme and outrageous behavior… if for no other reason than to get a reaction from her readers.

Personally, there are parts of this that scare the hell out of me.  I have a 16 and 15-year-old, neither of which are really that into blogging and stuff… now.  Maggie, on the other hand, is 10 and a bit extroverted.  “Katie” tells about her mother and her boyfriend’s fighting, her dad and his girlfriend’s abusive relationship, and how she pits everyone against each other to get what she wants.  She continually tells her readers that there is NOTHING sexual behind her boss’s generosity, but relays stories about him in such a way as to leave it almost obvious.  She degrades herself over “Dan,” her college instructor on-the-side, and you can’t help but feel pity for her… she so wants to be loved, she’s willing to turn herself into that girl who waits desperately for his girlfriend to go away so she can devour the scraps. 

With Undiscovered Gyrl, Allison Burnett reveals a very real picture of the modern teenage life.  Unable to read and comprehend a book a year unless assigned by a teacher, but reads and responds to 20 emails, IMs and text messages a second.  She couldn’t fathom doing homework without the TV on, CD blaring and the Google open on the computer.  It makes me glad I’ve not given any of my kids a cell phone.  They don’t have TVs in their bedrooms, even.  We just got a second computer last June, so maybe mine will be safe…

Here’s the thing:  Undiscovered Gyrl is very graphic and I even learned a few sex-things from reading it.  I never knew what a “box job” was before this book.  But it’s not porn, per se, and it all goes into the story for a purpose.  It is shocking… at least for me, an over-30-parent.  “Katie” isn’t totally unsympathetic, yet says things at times that make me want to slap the snot out of her.  She’s so stupid and I just want to grab her up and say, “Wake up!  You’re throwing your life away!”  But, if there’s one thing I got out of this book it’s this:  The fact it came from an adult would render it meaningless all together.

I give Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett 5 out of 5 stars… it did NOT disappoint.

Here’s a video made for the book:

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Great Googley! Why Does McAfee DL Whenever I Try to Work?

Okay, I didn’t get near the reading I had intended to this weekend.  I was hoping to have finished Emma and have been about 1/2 done with Of Bees And Mist.   Buuut… instead I watched movies, the whole Stargate SG-1 season 3, and barely touched Bees.  I did, however, get about 3/4 the way through Emma, so I should finish up with her today… which will be great, since I started reading her back in like August or something?

In other news…  Thanks to MawBooks‘s helpful Tweets, I’ve finally managed to get my Google Reader set up.  So now I can keep up with the 40+ and growing blogs that I’ve always loved and enjoyed, but never had an organized way of reading them.  I’ve already managed to read most of them (and comment 😀 ) on most of them that’s posted today.  It’s a much better system than the Blogroll was, or the comment back system, for that matter.

Here’s an example of what my Google Reader looks like:

Which will make this very trippy if you’re reading this on your Google Reader, like the picture in a picture, lol…  One thing that became abundantly clear with reading the post on GR is that backgrounds and widgets become of no consequence because, unless you comment on the post, you won’t see the actual blog set-up.  Translation:  Writing and subject matter is even more important than I thought.

Some other things of random consequence:

I’ve become somewhat addicted attached to my TweetDeck application.  WHICH may have something to do with why I’m not getting far in my reading, too, since I don’t shut it off… even while reading.  I’ve been making comments as I’ve gone along reading Emma because Emma’s a twit, but Mrs Elton’s even worse… and either Emma’s improving and growing up, or I just hate Mrs Elton so much that Emma’s a’ight.

Some of the more notable TWEETS:

• Bipolarsmom2Interested in Bipolar Disorder ? http://www.prlog.org/102501…  Well, not at the moment, but can I get a coupon for later?
• tweetshrink@thekoolaidmomwe’re taking all the vowels and selling them on ebay. otherwise how would we monetize our service?
• huckabuck#ff: @jazzyrae @theperfectRu @mrjoneslbc @Souljah2dasky @ImInappropriate @MiamiMonica @OhBriBri @PBlieu Follow them all, or you’re a loser. Apparently I am a loser, then… because being told “follow them or you’re a loser” makes me want to block you, even.  I haven’t yet, though, because you amuse me.

A fun one we had the other night was:

 lauram68 I’ve been nursing the same glass of wine for 4 hours!

thekoolaidmom @lauram68 Are your nipples feeling tipsy yet?

lauram68 @thekoolaidmom not yet!

Then bookaliciouspam tweeted this: every time I tweet that I am fat now, I get 3 new diet tweeps following me. Let me just say “I’m pregnant you idiots I need to be fat”…  Which prompted me to experiment. 

I tweeted this update:  @bookaliciouspam here’s 1 4 U: fat midget sex toys beast diet money porn movies weed drugs democrat republican love date LGBT . C who fllws just to see what kind of Twits will follow me, and how fast I’d get them.  Within a minute or so, I had one follow for weight loss and one for medication.  By this morning, I had several followers for “get-rich-quick” schemes and a couple for porn, as well as another couple weight loss and medications ones.  Surprisingly, none from the “Legalize Cannabis” corner.  Hmm….

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And something I’ve been wanting to post about for a while….

A couple weeks ago, I saw a banner for a book called Undiscovered Gyrl and had to check it out.  The website for the book is really cool:  Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett.  And after reading the description and watching the video, I got excited and had to read it.  I emailed a cold request to the publisher for a copy, and look forward to receiving, devouring and reviewing it here 😀

 

Going out to stalk the mailbox, now….

P.S. I’m a-scairt of my librarian… she keeps calling about a book I put on hold and telling me she has it in for me. Hmm….