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351st out of 498 books
—
1,033 voters
Undiscovered Gyrl
by
Allison Burnett (Goodreads Author)
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 with her boyfriend, Rory, and work at the bookstore. She plans to seduce Dan, a thirty-two-year-old film professor.
Katie chroni...more
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.
Katie chroni...more
Paperback, 304 pages
Published
August 11th 2009
by Vintage
(first published July 15th 2009)
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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 anecdotes of your...more
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 anecdotes of your...more
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
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 acceptance for a year.
Throu...more
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 acceptance for a year.
Throu...more
Mar 31, 2010
Serra
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
people interested in teen culture and blogging; readers who enjoyed "Go Ask Alice"
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
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 she needs to d...more
Amy longs to be discovered and truly loved, but there is so much about herself and life she needs to d...more
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 myself rooting for her and I...more
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 myself rooting for her and I...more
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.
Personall...more
Personall...more
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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 men who are...more
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 way by some o...more
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 way by some o...more
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 himself by writing a novel i...more
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 himself by writing a novel i...more
1 like · like · see review
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 Kat...more
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 Kat...more
1 like · like · see review
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 with her boyfriend, Rory, and work at the bookstore. She plans to...more
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 with her boyfriend, Rory, and work at the bookstore. She plans to...more
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:
Katie chronicles her adventures in an anonymous...more
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:
Katie chronicles her adventures in an anonymous...more
1 like · like · see review
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 blog. Is th...more
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 blog. Is th...more
I picked this up on impulse when the local Borders was closing last year. I was intrigued by the layout of the book. It's written as though it were a young girl (18) writing her own blog, complete with spelling and grammar errors at times. The author even includes a lot of actual current events from the dates of the bog posts. There is some focus on the presidential primaries and Barack Obama since the book takes places in 2008.
That aside the protagonist of the story, sometimes known as Katie,...more
That aside the protagonist of the story, sometimes known as Katie,...more
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 and family...more
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 and family...more
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
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
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 a turn for the serious, as she became...more
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 a turn for the serious, as she became...more
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 reall...more
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 reall...more
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 Gyrl" is told in the conversational style of a personal...more
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 Gyrl" is told in the conversational style of a personal...more
I won't go and tell you all about what happens in the book becuase you can do that pretty easily for yourself. I will say that I wasn't sure whether or not to give this book two stars or three. But something told me not to dismiss it so readily. I admit I read it because I knew it would be an easy read to distract me while doing research for school. I just didn't ecpect it to be as powerful as it was. I had to look to the back cover to chech if I wasn't reading something based on a true story be...more
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 her brutal honesty. I wish I could...more
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 her brutal honesty. I wish I could...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
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 chose this book because it seemed like an ea...more
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 chose this book because it seemed like an ea...more
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 one day. Once...more
I read this book straight through in one day. Once...more
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 voice, she was...more
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 voice, she was...more
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 Washingtonienne bl...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
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 mal...more
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Allison Burnett grew up in Evanston, Illinois, the son of a clinical psychologist and a Northwestern University professor. After graduating from Northwestern, he was a fellow of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Program at the Juilliard School. His novels include Christopher (a finalist for the 2004 PEN Center USA Literary Award), The House Beautiful, Undiscovered Gyrl, and Death By Sunshine.
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“Only on the Internet can a person be lonely and popular at the same time.”
—
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