Feminist influencer and illustrator Florence Given’s debut fiction novel, Girlcrush, follows Eartha on a wild and weird modern-day exploration as she exits an abusive relationship with a man and commences life as an openly bisexual woman, while also becoming a viral sensation on Wonder Land, a social media app where people project their dream selves online. But as her online self and offline self become more and more distanced, trauma from her past comes back to haunt her and destroy her present. Eartha must decide which version of herself she wants to be.
Florence Given is cringe but she is free. If this had come out in the early 2010s, I think it would’ve changed the trajectory of my life. Given’s writing is cringe, but she is—as she promotes online—unapologetically herself, and I love that about her. I love that Given wrote this book and was excited about it. You can feel her excitement in the writing, writing that, while basic and often repetitive, is actually pretty decent and even great at times. But it could also be bad. There was a lot of stuff that Eartha perceives as being amazing but just isn’t. For example, the introduction of E.V. Eartha was obsessed with this character, but I never felt that they were compelling enough. In fact, E.V is someone I would want to get away from. It’s a shame that Given’s editors never pushed for this to be improved as it’s a glaring problem throughout.
Given’s platform was built on basic feminist ideas, ones that were praised in the early 2010s, and her feminism has still not evolved for Girlcrush. It’s pretty much female empowerment (great!) and men = bad. Eartha’s bisexual awakening is reliant on hating men and that either works for you or it doesn’t. Or it works for you at a certain time in your life, and then it doesn’t. This is not to say that women should centre their lives around men, because they absolutely do not have to, and it can be freeing to realise this as a young woman. Given’s themes are important, but she could stand to strengthen and give more depth to her feminist themes in future work. A strength of the book was that its themes and depictions of the online world felt very authentic, such as online culture, being addicted to an app, and being cancelled. Given also did well in depicting the exploration of sexuality and sex. It was very relatable in that way.
Girlcrush is a fun and entertaining read. It’s engaging and easy to fly through. That makes the ending all the more disappointing. It was a rushed, quick wrap-up that robs us of Eartha’s larger character development, leaving it feeling weak. *Light spoilers for ending* Eartha seems to “fix” her online problems, but not her offline ones, which were always way more interesting. There are no repaired relationships among her diverse friendship group, but maybe it serves another purpose to not repair them, to have Eartha as a work-in progress. Either way, I don’t think it works to not give us a more thought-out and satisfactory ending with rewarding closure. There are other disappointments regarding the ending, but I won’t spoil more.
Leave a Reply