There was so much that I liked about this book. The main thing that I did appreciate, was that the story is told in a sort of blog/diary format. Because of this, we are able to truly read and hear the raw emotions from the main character because this writing outlet for her is her biggest confidant. While I did really like this book, I have to say I have never been so floored by a book before reading this. There was so much left up for interpretation that it left me feeling very hollow and even kind of depressed once I finished reading it. This book has many different outcomes and takes many alternative directions than other books that are similar in this type of genre. I think it is well worth the read. ( )

You can read my review of this book here:
http://voices.yahoo.com/fictional-blogging-her-life-11932128.html
( )

I'm not exactly sure what I really liked about this book. It could be the realism portrayed in Katie, the gossipy nature, the connection with blogging, the draw into Katie's emotional roller-coaster, the epistolary format (blogging dates), the secondary characters, the humor, the risky behavior, the fact that I learned to like Katie, etc. In truth, I think it's a little bit of everything.

What I didn't like was the s*x scenes. I don't believe that all the details needed to be spelled out. However, after a while I felt like I knew Katie, so her behavior became expected and accepted . . . because that was Katie, and she was the one telling the story. (I remembered that it was a book after all, so it was okay to accept it from a fictional character.) Anyway, I was always looking for the good in her and hoping for the best for her.

This was quite a book. I am left with many emotions (just finished it) and sadly think that it's probably a very scary truth.

Originally posted on: Thoughts of Joy ( )

This is a difficult review to write. While I liked the book a lot it was still different.
I liked it because it was written in blog form. I have read books written like diaries but never blogs.
Some other things I liked is that the author makes you feel for Katie. She is a troubled teen who drinks, smokes, has a bad relationship with her father, and sleeps with older men. You can't help but feel sorry for her.
Saying this, there are some things in the book that were very bold and detailed. Like Katie's language got rauncy once in a while, and her sex life is explained. And even though Katie is a teenager I wouldn't think that this book would be for a young reader.
And I did not see the ending coming. It ends with Katie's last blog post as:

"Wait, phone ringing. Someboday loves me. Stand by."

I'm not going to say who picks up Katie's blog from here because I don't want to give anything away. But I have to say that I was not expecting the ending. And I am also still wondering what exactly happened. I wish the ending would have been a little different. ( )

Katie decides to take a year off before she starts college and documents this time in a blog. Undiscovered Gyrl is that blog. It reads a lot like a diary in that it is a first person account in dated entries and since it is an anonymous blog it is filled with thoughts and actions that probably would not usually be shared. This setting, though, allows for some interaction between Katie and the people who email or leave comments and I think her response to them is sometimes even more telling than the blog entries themselves. Katie is blunt and at time even crude. Her life is filled with sex and alcohol and other self destructive behavior and sometimes you want to shake her and make her see what she is doing. Other times you want to slap her because she seems to see what she is doing to herself but she just doesn’t stop. But at the same time you can’t help but feel for Katie because you can also see the hurt and pain. Burnett does a good job of creating a voice for Katie and keeping true to it so Katie sounds natural and believable and it is not hard to see Katie as real and to quickly become involved in her story. It is a fast read, not because it is light subject matter but, because the story is engrossing and somehow you find that you can’t look away. The ending leaves you with a lot of questions. Not just about the future but about the past as well. It is the kind of ending that some people will love and others will hate. I honestly don’t know if I like the ending or not. In a way I feel gypped because I felt like we were getting to know Katie and then, well, suddenly not, but I definitely did not see it coming and it had me thinking about it long after I closed the book, two things that I think are good in an ending and often hard to achieve. ( )