Book review: Why Girls Are Weird

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By Pamela Ribon

Reviewed by Natazzz

A few years ago I discovered the blog Pamie.com by writer Pamela Ribon, which I have been reading ever since. Here she shares personal accounts of her life as a writer, as well as what she gets up to in her spare time. The blog is quite popular and was already around ten years ago, when having a personal blog was still something unique. During those early years Ribon decided that her blog and the traffic it created might be an interesting topic for a novel and that's when Why Girls Are Weird was born.

Why Girls Are Weird (2003) tells the story of Anna Koval, who decides to start a personal blog. To make it more interesting, and mainly to entertain herself, she starts making things up. For example, that she is still together with her ex-boyfriend, whom she broke up with ages ago. Little does she realize that thousands and thousands of people are reading her blog every day, and believing her every word. She soon starts to receive tons of e-mails from her followers, whom she gets into complicated correspondence with. After all, it's not easy trying to remember what is her real life and what is her blog life. This only gets more complicated when she decides to meet a few of her readers, not to mention when her ex-boyfriend finds out she's been writing about him.

This novel is a collection of blog posts and e-mail correspondence, connected and brought to life by an accompanying story of Anna's daily life. I thought it made for a very interesting read. I love the different formats that were used, the general topic of the story behind one girl's blog and her online life versus her real life. It also helped a lot that both the Anna in the blog and the Anna behind the scenes are interesting, funny characters. She gets up to lots of stuff that seemed very recognizable. Not that I have ever made up a blog and spread lies about people, but some of the things she worries about and the trouble she gets into because of her blog are things that anyone can relate to.

After reading this novel I haven't figured out just exactly why girls are weird, although weird is a label that can certainly be applied to the main character. If you are looking for a modern themed novel, that will make you laugh as well as cringe, you should definitely check this one out.

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