Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

May 25, 2010

Kelsi rated it:

This seems like a real account of someone you probably know. A real girl telling a real story about something that could really happen. But yet, it's never really boring. Burnett writes it in a way that feels like you're sharing juicy gossip with one of your best girlfriends, constantly.

Definitely a chick book. Or maybe even a very sensitive boy book. But classified by gender or not, it's a story that will actually bring up true emotions and maybe even make you remember painful anecd More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 18, 2011

Glendalee rated it:

What can I say? I'm a sucker for these type of novels that are written in diary form. I think its because I'm such a nosy person. This book story line was interesting. An 18 year old trying to sleep with an man twice her age is always great lol. I love reading a book where the main character is just a pompous shallow bitch and that was who 18 year old Katie was, and though usually i hate people like that I had to feel for Katie because she was not all there. Though overall the novel wasn't a dis More...

0 comments like

May 09, 2010

Kelly rated it:

I'm not sure what to say about this book. It's a compelling read, to say the very least. It's definitely good. But the word that I keep coming back to is "disturbing."

A blurb on the back says it's basically an updated Lolita, except that she's telling her own story on a blog. For me, though, it reminded me of Blake Nelson's Girl. That one was about a freshman in high school and Undiscovered Gyrl is about a girl who should be a freshman in college, but she deferred her More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 31, 2010

Serra rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2010

Cherise rated it:

17 year old Amy has just decided not to go to college for a year and to kill time she begins to write a blog. Writing under the name of Katie she begins to amuse her readers with tantalizing tidbits of her life. By changing names and pertinent facts she is able to keep her sordid tales about sex, drugs, drinking, and the dysfunctional relationship with her parents and much older men, anonymous.

Amy longs to be discovered and truly loved, but there is so much about herself and life More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2010

Holly rated it:

To say that I was disappointed with this book would be the understatement of the year. Undiscovered Gyrl could have been a great book, but the ending, combined with the character development left quite a bit of room for improvement.

First of all the characters were underdeveloped and superficial. Their actions seemed realistic enough, but the emotions and drive behind them were lacking.

The main character "Katie" made decisions that frustrated me deeply. I never found More...

0 comments like

Dec 07, 2009

Alisha rated it:

Honestly, I was surprised by the book. It’s set up as a blog-to-book, and in it you watch as the narrator (the definition of the “unreliable narrator” to be sure) grows as a blogger, and disintegrates in some ways as a person. The idea of being able to be completely open in the anonymity is, at first, a relief and exciting thing for her, later it seems to be something that pushes her to more extreme and outrageous behavior… if for no other reason than to get a reaction from her readers.
More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 23, 2009

Sarah rated it:

My sister lent me this book and I'm afraid to admit I couldn't put it down. I'm a sucker for these diary type books (think Go Ask Alice or Wintergirls), even if they're not that well-written. The book is a series of blog entries written by the young and gorgeous "Katie." Katie has decided to defer college for a year, and turns to the internet to share her stories regarding her one and only friend, her abusive boyfriend, and her bad habit of becoming sexually involved with much older me More...

0 comments like

Oct 28, 2009

Ann-kat rated it:

Going based on my three stars alone wouldn't be fair to the book. Did I like the book? Yes. Did I really like the book? No. But...

On the surface is a garish young girl telling her business without censoring herself. She talks about her sexploitations with unavailable older men, her abusive relationship with her boyfriend, the decline of her only friendship, and her drug and alcohol abuse. She doesn't paint a pretty picture. In fact, most people who read it might be offended in some w More...

0 comments like

Oct 24, 2009

Grady rated it:

Allison Burnett: The Master of Identities

Allison Burnett is able to absorb every facet of his created characters so completely that each of his books gives the reader the feeling that the first person narrator is the actual writer. Visit his previous books - CHRISTOPHER: A TALE OF SEDUCTION and THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL - and try to be convinced that the idiosyncratic characters are not real and writing their own memoirs. Now in UNDISCOVERED GYRL Burnett further challenges himse More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 23, 2009

Trisha rated it:

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 More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 07, 2009

Amy rated it:

Title: undiscovered gyrl
Author: Allison Burnett
ISBN: 978-0-307-47312-7
Pages: 293
Release Date: August 11, 2009
Publisher: Vintage Contemporaries
Genre: YA Fiction
Rating: 4 out of 5

Publisher: Only on the internet can you have so many friends and be so lonely.
Beautiful, wild, funny, and lost, Katie Kampenfelt is taking a year off before college to find her passion. Ambitious in her own way, Katie intends to do more than just smoke weed More...

0 comments like

Jul 04, 2009

Aerin rated it:

From the publisher:

Beautiful, wild, funny, and lost, Katie Kampenfelt is taking a year off before college to find her passion. Ambitious in her own way, Katie intends to do more than just smoke weed with her boyfriend, Rory, and work at the bookstore. She plans to seduce Dan, a thirty-two-year-old film professor.

It seems like a great idea, an awesome book along the lines of If I Stay or Wintergirls. Just watch the trailer.

The publisher continues:

More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 07, 2010

Frances rated it:

oh good golly gosh. this may be the first book i give up on. it's forcing me to make faces of disgust on public transit. so far it's not quite rivaling the terrible movie I watched last night (THE KATE LOGAN AFFAIR, avoid at all costs), but it's getting close.

Alright, I gave up. My first book ever. Perhaps I'm giving up too soon, as many of the reviews I have read are quite good. I refuse to go back to it though. I will give it this much... it does a great job of mimicking a teenage More...

0 comments like

May 16, 2010

Amber rated it:

I came across Undiscovered Gyrl while browsing through the shelves at my local library. After reading the back cover, I chose it as an “I’ll give it a try” book, while having very low expectations for it. About 20 pages in, I was hooked!

Katie is a recent high school graduate with no job who put off college for at least a year. She lives at home with her mom and has a rocky relationship with her boyfriend Rory. Katie begins an anonymous blog and changes the names of all of her friends More...

0 comments like

Aug 31, 2009

E. rated it:

I was sucked into this voyeuristic mess from page one. Katie Kampenfelt is seventeen, and already everthing our mothers warned us about. Her blog chronicles her excessive drinking and drug use, her sexcapades with her boyfriend and the older man she's sleeping with, and fantasies about her boss. The style, while gimmicky, is relevant - everyone has a blog, everyone thinks their life is newsworthy. And while Katie's blog is indeed different from the rest, what she's writing is nothing you would w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 18, 2009

Lilibeth rated it:

Okay, for once I'm going to skip to my own little made-up synopsis. There are four specific words that sum up this story, in a nutshell: crudely honest yet deceitful. Straight-up. The fact that it's written in blog-format is just a bonus, I swear. By the time you get through the first few posts of self-knowing to self-questing, you're hooked. I got a head-ache from reading straight from the start to page 174. ('Course, that could have been also because it was the middle of the night.) The sexual More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 01, 2009

Emily rated it:

First thing's first: The "gyrl" thing bugs me. In fact, there are a lot of things that stem from the blog format that bug me. I cringed at the typos. Is it too much to ask for our heroine to use Firefox?

So this book started out as a set of entertaining blog entries from a 17 year old who is fooling around with someone 15 years her senior. I might have related to that just a bit. But it didn't take long for me to lose my ability to relate to "Katie". It took More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 30, 2009

Caitlin rated it:

I got this from ShelfAwareness. It was an easy read - breezed through it in a day. I understand that the movie rights have already been sold & they are making a movie of this with Miley Cyrus in the lead role which seems appropriate.

This is a series of blog entries which on the surface sounds like it might be something different & cool, but in reality reads just like any other book done in diary form. The story is pretty basic & the characters are fairly stereotypical. I didn't r More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 10, 2009

Michael rated it:

The back cover for "Undiscovered Gyrl" declares "only on the Internet can you have so many friends and be so lonely."

That statement sums up a lot of the life of first-person narrator, Katie Kampenfelt. Katie has decided to defer her college for a year to find out what she really wants to do in life. She chronicles this journey via her popular blog that picks up a lot of hits, comments and e-mails about Katie and her lifestyle.

"Undiscovered Gyr More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 05, 2009

Cheyanne rated it:

WARNING!! CONTAINS SPOILERS!!

When I first opened the book I thought, "Oh no, not another book in blog." I bought the book without opening it and sampling it. When I was in the store I turned it over and saw that it was a modern Lolita. That was enough for me to buy it. Lolita is my favorite book. But then I saw that the book was one long blog.

After about 100 pages I finally let myself get absorbed. Although, it was pretty childish in story and writing, I loved More...

0 comments like

Dec 14, 2009

Michelle rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like

Sep 10, 2011

Kelly rated it:

This book is about exactly about what the title says, an undiscovered girl.
Katie decides to defer college for a year to decide what to do with her life.
During this time she starts an anonymous blog about her adventures in hopes of
it helping her decide what to do. She gets into a sexual relationship with an
older man. After her alcoholic father dies she starts to re-evaluate life but is
still making reckless decisions when it comes to her relationships.

I ch More...

0 comments like

Jun 23, 2009

Kellyreaderofbooks rated it:

Written in blog form, this book is about a lonely, self-destructive teenage girl. When the book (or blog;-) starts, the un-named protaganist is at a stand still in her life: no ambition for college, doesn't want to work, feels she's been left behind while most of her friends go on to college. As the story goes on, her life starts to spiral more and more out of control. All the while, she's blogging it all for her reader's to get the inside view.

I read this book straight through in on More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 01, 2009

Alea rated it:

I found Undiscovered Gyrl to be a very original and strange book in the best way possible. It's one that demands discussion and would be perfect for book clubs. Seriously, if you've read it I really want to talk to you about it, email me!

I was initially attracted to the format of the book which is written to blog posts. I find this style of writing to be very engaging no matter what but the character and author of the blog Katie I found to be really interesting. I really liked her vo More...

0 comments like

Jul 31, 2009

Lauren rated it:

This novel is a shocking, provacative first-person look at teenage "Katie Kampenfeldt" - not her real name - as seen through her anonymous blog. Katie dreams of being famous, but in the meantime, she is taking a year off from college (she is only 17 at the start of the novel) and drinking/drugging/and sleeping her way through life. Katie seems to have an anything goes view of the world, particularly with respect to sexual mores. Essentially, the blog reminds me of the infamous Washingt More...

0 comments like

Mar 11, 2011

Meagan rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Aug 02, 2009

Debbie rated it:

I have to warn you that this book can get pretty intense and kind of leaves you in a stunned state when it’s done. The book is written in the format of blog posting by a 17 going on 18 year old girl as she chronicles the downward spiral her life is headed in. If you are a parent she is sort of your worst nightmare of what your child may be up to. I did not find her character very likeable yet she seemed very real which was even more surprising when I found out the author, Allison Burnett, is More...

0 comments like

Aug 09, 2011

Sheila rated it:

This is a quick and easy read that I felt almost guilty about reading. The main character is a self-absorbed teenagers (we can all relate, even if we don't want to admit it) that can justify even her worst behavior. She writes this blog of her exploits that are bad but by no means the worst we have read. I was completely engaged in her story, it was easy to be, she was so self-destructive without being tragic. And then the end. I can't tell you but in the final 10 pages everything changes a More...

0 comments like

Aug 10, 2009

Violet rated it:

What attracted me to Undiscovered Gyrl was the premise. It’s about a girl who blogs anonymously and supposedly with honesty. She is a 17 year old teenager who lives her life without really thinking of the consequences. She has a boyfriend Rory who is more or less her age and she is also having an affair with an older guy whom she calls Dan and who already has a girlfriend. She takes a year off before joining college because she feels she isn’t ready.

She calls herself Katie. Although More...

0 comments like