Really loved this one! Funny, with great characters. Wonderful message about friendship and being okay with who you are. Loved Dog.

I recently read and really enjoyed The It Girl by Katy Birchall. I was lucky enough to hear a little bit about this book from the author at a recent book event and it was really interesting to listen to Katy talk about her own personal experiences that went into writing this story and how she went about it. She also read aloud an excerpt and it was absolutely hilarious. So I was always going to be excited to read it.

And The It Girl didn't disappoint when I read the full story. It was funny and sweet and had a really great message about friendship and being okay with you are and how there are more important things that popularity or fame.

The It Girl tells this story together with emails and voice mails about a 14 year old girl called Anna and her life in London with her father and her dog, called Dog. It sort of starts out as Anna has started a list of her aims in life. And these goals include training Dog to high five but also to figure out stuff so that she isn't such a social outcast in the things that she does. This is sort of eclipsed half way through the novel when she finds out that her father is currently dating a rather famous actress and the media dub Anna an 'it girl' and Anna really struggles with this new fame and attention that she is receiving.

I love stories like The It Girl. It's been done before, with The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot and Geek Girl by Holly Smale. This fairy tale story of a normal girl thrust into the spotlight is an interesting and always fun story line annd Katy Birchall's story is just as entertaining. Anna's story is filled with hilarious and embarrassing moments. It starts off with Anna coming home from school after accidentally burning the most popular girl at school's hair and some rather frantic interactions between her and her best friend.

And some of the real strong points in the novel were Anna's friendships and her relationships with the people in her life. Particularly that of her relationship with best friends, Jess and Danny. But also her relationships with boy her mother and father. And also this burgeoning relationship with her future step-sister and actual It Girl, Marianne. I thought this relationship between Anna's mum and dad was wonderful and very unusual.

I really loved Anna as a character. She's awkward and nerdy and she's still figuring stuff out. She has an idea at the start of the book of what she wants out of life and friendships and relationships and because of this she makes some mistakes and bad choices along the way. I liked that about her and I liked how she developed over the course of this book.

The It Girl was all kinds of funny. I recommend that you pick it up for that reason alone but hopefully you'll also take away from this book some amazing characters and friendships and a rather lovely message. Really looking forward to book 2 now!

it’s a banger✨

I liked this book, the characters were well fleshed out (with perhaps, the exception of Danny) and the narrative was humorous. Even though some of the moments felt slapstick or unpredictable, it worked with Anna's personality. I did wish she would wise up to the obvious at some points, but then Anna is delightfully naive so I gave it a pass. It did also irritate me that she was embarrassed about the things she liked, such as the Wolverine vest moment, it felt like with her character, with her bubbly enthusiasm, she shouldn't have thought twice about having comic book garb. But overall, it was a good, funny, light-hearted read.

Voor mij is It-girl een boek dat van de 14-jarige Jessica vast en zeker vijf sterren had ontvangen, maar van de nu 25-jarige Jessica ontvangt het slechts drie sterren. Voor mijn gevoel val ik eigenlijk buiten de doelgroep van dit boek, maar toch heeft het verhaal mij genoeg kunnen boeien door de humor die in het boek zit en de goede boodschap voor de onzekere jongeren. Daarnaast is het boek heel vlot geschreven en leest je het in no-time uit. En ondanks dat ik er wel meerdere minpunten in heb gevonden, heeft het boek mij genoeg gepakt om mij nieuwsgierig te maken naar It-girl 2! Ik raad het boek zeker aan in de leeftijdscategorie 11 tot 16 jaar.

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C'était fun de relire son favori du collège

SOO good!!!!

School Library Journal
BIRCHALL, Katy. The It Girl. 352p. ebook available. S. & S./Aladdin. Jun. 2016. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9781481463621.

Gr 5-8–In this witty British import, a middle schooler must face her own insecurity after her social status gets an unexpected boost. Anna Huntley, 12, is most comfortable at home with her journalist single dad, watching old movies and communing with her pet/soulmate, Dog. She's terrified she'll embarrass her only friends, Jess and Danny, into abandoning her. Anna's quirky personality and frequent misreading of situations are bemusing, even to Jess. When Anna's father starts dating a superstar, the potential for public humiliation is high. For naive Anna, navigating the limelight as well as normal adolescence (crushes! field trips!) is a test for her already shaky social instincts.

After she imperils both her sweet fledgling romance with a fellow nerd and, worse, her friendship with Jess, she must rely on her new blended family's support to scheme her way back to happiness. Smart plotting has the well developed adult characters and Marianne, Anna's surprisingly nice celebutante sister, demonstrate that anyone worth knowing is a little dorky. Birchall's debut is appropriate for younger readers yet sharp enough to keep older middle schoolers rooting for a well-earned happy ending. There are flaws: a slightly slow start, some culturally insensitive asides—Anna's goals include feeding rice to African children, and unlikely tween email habits. VERDICT Though not nearly as nuanced and authentic, this is in the vein of Rebecca Stead's Goodbye Stranger; its juicy premise gives way to supportive female friendship and realistic self-discovery, without losing its teen appeal.–Miriam DesHarnais, Towson University, MD