Girl Online

Girl Online is the debut novel by English author and internet celebrity Zoe Sugg, released on 25 November 2014 through Penguin Books. The romance and drama novel is aimed at a young adult audience and focuses on a sixteen-year-old anonymous blogger and what happens when her blog goes viral. The novel is a New York Times Best Seller in the Young Adult category. The book was the fastest selling book of 2014 and it also broke the record for highest first week sales for a debut author since records began.

Plot

The novel surrounds Penny Porter, a fifteen year old living with her parents in Brighton. Penny starts blogging about her problems, such as school drama, friends, family, and boys. Her family travels to New York where her mother is organising a wedding. Attending the wedding, Penny meets a musician, Noah, with whom she falls in love, resulting in her blog going viral.

Background

While based around similar experiences, Sugg has stated that the book is "in no way autobiographical". The book was listed before release by pop culture website ANDPOP as one of "10 Books by Celebrities that are Worth Reading".

Girl

A girl is a female human from birth through childhood and adolescence to attainment of adulthood when she becomes a woman. The term girl may also be used to mean a young woman, and is often used as a synonym for daughter.

Etymology

The English word girl first appeared during the Middle Ages between 1250 and 1300 CE and came from the Anglo-Saxon words gerle (also spelled girle or gurle). The Anglo-Saxon word gerela meaning dress or clothing item also seems to have been used as a metonym in some sense.

Girl has meant any young unmarried woman since about 1530. Its first noted meaning for sweetheart is 1648. The earliest known appearance of girl-friend is in 1892 and girl next door, meant as a teenaged female or young woman with a kind of wholesome appeal, dates only to 1961.

Usage for adults

The word girl is sometimes used to refer to an adult female, usually a younger one. This usage may be considered derogatory or disrespectful in professional or other formal contexts, just as the term boy can be considered disparaging when applied to an adult man. Hence, this usage is often deprecative. It can also be used deprecatively when used to discriminate against children ("you're just a girl").

Online and offline

The terms "online" and "offline" have specific meanings in regard to computer technology and telecommunications in which "online" indicates a state of connectivity, while "offline" indicates a disconnected state. Common vernacular extended from their computing and telecommunication meanings and refers specifically to an Internet connection. Lastly, in the area of human interaction and conversation, discussions taking place during a business meeting are "online", while issues that do not concern all participants of the meeting should be "taken offline" — continued outside of the meeting.

Definitions

In computer technology and telecommunication, online and offline are defined by Federal Standard 1037C. They are states or conditions of a "device or equipment" or of a "functional unit". To be considered online, one of the following may apply to a system: it is under the direct control of another device; it is under the direct control of the system with which it is associated; or it is available for immediate use on demand by the system without human intervention.

Zoella

Zoe Elizabeth Sugg (born 28 March 1990) is an English fashion and beauty vlogger, YouTuber, and author. She is best known by her YouTube username Zoella. Her debut novel, Girl Online, was released in November 2014 and broke the record for highest first-week sales of a first-time novelist since Nielsen BookScan began compiling such records in 1998.

Personal life

Sugg is the older sister of Joe Sugg, who is also a vlogger and internet personality known on YouTube as ThatcherJoe. She grew up in Lacock, Wiltshire, where she attended The Corsham School secondary school and arts college, and currently lives in Brighton.

Sugg is in a relationship with fellow YouTube personality Alfie Deyes, known on YouTube as PointlessBlog.

Career

Sugg was working as an apprentice at an interior design company when she created her blog, "Zoella", in February 2009. By the end of the year it had a thousand followers and as of September 2015 it has received over 540 million total visits. The fashion, beauty and lifestyle blog expanded into a YouTube channel in 2009, while Sugg was working for British clothing retailer New Look.