Review 2015 No. 13 | Love, Tanya by Tanya Burr

All the way back in November 2015 the UK's most famous YouTuber Zoe Sugg released her debut novel Girl Online. The book became a bestseller, made history as the fastest selling debut novel, and sparked a trend of YouTube stars being offered lucrative book deals. If Zoe is Brighton's answer to Virginia Woolf then her Norwich counterpart, makeup and beauty guru Tanya Burr, is Norwich's answer to Zoe Sugg. Whilst Zoe is busy writing up the code-named Girl Online 2, her fellow YouTubers are equally successfully releasing their efforts. British YouTuber's Marcus Butler ('Hello Life!'), Carrie Hope Fletcher ('All I Know Now'), Louise Pentland ('Life With a Sprinkle of Glitter'), and Zoe Sugg's boyfriend Alfie Deyes ('The Pointless Book'), have all been offered deals and some sequels. American YouTubers, such as Joey Graceffa ('In Real Life'), have also been enveloped in the trend.

Tanya Burr is part of the Norwich YouTube dynasty that includes fiancé Jim Chapman and his sisters Sam and Nic (of Pixiwoo). Her light-hearted, positive beauty and lifestyle videos aimed at her 13-24-year-old target audience gave the 25-year-old the opportunity to have her own lifestyle and beauty book, Love, Tanya, published by Penguin Books on 29th January 2015. The book includes chapters on Baking & Recipes and Confidence & Happiness, as well as familiar themes Skincare Essentials and Make-up Essentials. This book is high-quality, and as she says meant to be a 'keep-sake', with glossy magazine style photographs throughout and sections for writing personal notes and lists.

To read my review of Girl Online by Zoe Sugg:

http://cupcakesandcosmeticsbyclare.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/review-2015-no-1-girl-online-by-zoe-sugg.html

Review 2015 No. 1 | Girl Online by Zoe Sugg

Image: http://www.zoella.co.uk

Welcome, welcome to 2015 (on the blog that is)! I hope you had a great Christmas and are having a good New Year and all that. Having been sidetracked with a hectic schedule in the final months of 2014 I didn't manage to read much at all, which has lead me to decide to read and review at least 52 books in 2015 (that's at least one blog post a week! :)). Without further ado, seeing as it is the end of the first week, here are my thoughts on Girl Online.

If you are au fait with all things blog/YouTube/book in the world then you'll probably know that on 25th November 2014 Zoe Sugg, or Zoella to her 6 million+ YouTube subscribers, released her first novel, Girl Online. Everything was going well, the book had rave reviews and had the highest ever first-week sales for a debut author (78,109) since records began in 1998. That was until it came out that Zoe hadn't written the book 'on her own'. Zoella and her publishers Penguin Random House eventually confirmed that Girl Online had been ghostwritten.

So now that the elephant, or penguin, in the room has been dealt with I can say that I don't think it matters. Surely the quality and reception the novel receives is more important? The novel is a form of semi-autobiography, telling the story of a female UK blogger who, like Zoella, lives in Brighton. A love story ensues that leads us through the side roads of Brighton and New York and into the mind of a teenage girl dealing with anxiety disorder. I won't spoil any more of the adventure, but I will say that, whether or not she wrote it herself, Zoella came up with the idea and has used her experiences to empower rather than put down young people. For that, I think she deserves credit for creating one of the few Young Adult books worth reading this year.

Reviews and comments below! Cx