Is This OK?

Aw this was so good, I loved it. A fabulous and honest account of the evolution of the internet and our ongoing obsession with it. I related to this so much, and I enjoyed it very much. A refreshingly honest and amusing, self deprecatory and poignant book. Highly recommended.

I can't believe how much this book resonated with me, it was like I was reading my own early teenage diary, learning that there are other people out there who have had obsession over obsession with celebrities for no reason, and then the birthing trauma - again was very similar to my own experience, so much so that I had to put it down for a bit. No one prepares you what happens after you give birth do they!? 10 out of 10 for this roller coaster ride of a novel. Wish I had discovered Harriet sooner.

This started out funny, engaging, sympathetic, relatable and ended up tragic, heart breaking, hopeful, and still funny, engaging, sympathetic and relatable. Harriet brilliantly navigates her life and obsessions with such honesty. I wish her all the best.

I found this tricky at first, mostly because it wasn’t what I was expecting. It reads and is positioned like fiction, but after some Googling (appropriate) I realised it was memoir. Harriet has an amazing, enjoyable and totally relatable voice, I empathised and could even identify with a frightening amount of what she says and feels. Even when dealing with harder topics, Harriet brings this incredible energy and humour. Not the read I expected but clearly the one I needed, IS THIS OK? is brilliant and necessary for anyone forced to live in the digital age.

This memoir picked up pace and pulled me in fairly rapidly. It is an achingly honest exploration of growing up during the dawn of social media and tells how the internet shaped Harriet Gibsone’s everyday life, the choices she made from adolescence in both her relationships and career. It explores how it also led to her engagement in behaviour that is far from healthy but remarkably relatable in this age of celebrity and Google.
She writes her story in such an open way and with such a comic, albeit self-deprecating voice, that I found this book next to impossible to put down, I guess it was that window into someone else’s life that she herself finds so addictive. But it is not just her writing style and her voice that is so compelling, it is the brave honesty and the raw edge-ness that is piled into this book that makes it fascinating.
The second half of the book deals with the impact of early menopause and the quest then to become a mother and the realities of that, juxtaposed against the picture painted by influencers on similar journeys. There is so much realism jammed in here, some of which makes you wince and some of which makes you sigh in relieved recognition. There are also some truly unexpected moments, so much so that at no point did I get bored or want to skip – this is so unusual for me – and I was never quite sure what was coming next.
This is one of the best memoirs I have read in a long time, partly for the pace at which it rattles along, partly for the surprises that jump in along the way but largely for the honesty and the courage. Fabulous.

An absolutely brilliant read with a very humane take of adolescence and not being perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir and felt closely connected to Harriet, especially with her ups and downs and found her retelling of her pregnancy and early menopause deeply insightful.

I cannot believe how much this book resonated with me, it was like I was holding a mirror to my early twenties, coming of age in London, when the Internet barely existed and suddenly it was everywhere (like Alexa Chung!).

A roller coaster of a novel - in a short book of just over 300 pages we get everything, from "laughter, libido, imagination, daydreams, ambition" to "the big emotions, the migraines, sweating, spikes of anger, weight gain, lethargy, aching joints, heart palpitations, stuttering, night terrors, insomnia..." A full spectre!

I loved the first half of the book - it was all about music for me, but the second half, the sore naked truth of being a woman - that's what moved me.

And yes, this is a memoir. Engaging, devastating, funny and hopeful. I didn't think I would love it. But I do.

P.S. The cover does not do this book justice! I would not have looked at the cover/book twice if I did not search for the book specifically. Please change!

Batshit crazy, and alarmingly relatable, 'Is This OK?' is an unflinchingly honest coming-of-age story. Harriet Gibsone had me snorting with laughter from the opening pages. The nostalgia is strong with this one. As the book progresses, Harriet's anecdotes become increasingly unhinged, resulting in an uncomfortable reading experience in places. Mainly because I've done some stupid stuff I'm not proud of too. Highly recommend it if you need a laugh and want to feel a little less weird.

coming of age in the early days of the internet was an acid trip for most millennials and older gen-zs, but for harriet gibsone, logging on for the first time marked a disquieting seismic shift in her character that she fears she will never recover from.

through a series of hilarious, wry and impressively inquisitive anecdotes, this unflinchingly honest memoir tells the story of two crucial eras in harriet's life so far, both of which are engulfed by social media and the intense parasocial relationships it incites.

the first: her early twenties, as she juggles her young career as a music journalist with incessantly stalking pretty much everyone who enters her orbit online.

and the second: her late twenties, as she falls in love, receives a devastating diagnosis of early onset menopause, experiences a traumatic birth following years of invasive medical treatments, and learns to navigate motherhood.

despite being the former title holder of 'fittest girl in year 11' (huge slay), harriet is as insecure as the rest of us. throughout her journey into womanhood, she is increasingly drawn to comparing her appearance, behaviour and life with that of people she stalks online, be it alexa chung, her ex boyfriend's ex, her therapist's girlfriend, or mumfluencers with dreamy birth stories and notoriously unattainable daily routines.

given that morally ambiguous weird girl behaviour, '00s social media, online micro-communities and the blurred lines between url and irl are literally my favourite things to read about, i'm probably part of the exact audience gibsone set out to target with this book. i found her writing style funny and endearing, so didn't mind the few tangents that did little for plot progression. her deep dive into deliciously ella's pregnancy/birth/mum journey compared to hers is my fave part of the book. highly recommend!

thank you for the arc!

This was an interested perspective that really resonated with me. A great read, and one I'm sure I'll be thinking about in the future - I will also most definitely be picking up more from Harriet Gibsone.

This book is multi faceted view of an ordinary woman navigating her way through a stressful early menopause. Menopause isn't easy but early in life makes that bit more tumultuous. Along that journey there are various gateways she goes through, some hilarious moments and some raw moments. You experience each and every one, is it OK? Ofcourse it is!
This is a book about a real woman facing real life issues a great read with some laugh out loud moments.
Grab a copy! Thank you to Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for an advanced copy for an honest review.

I found Is This Ok? A breath of fresh air. Harriett has managed to write about some serious real-life issues and combine humorous moments alongside the darker sections of the plot. I have already been recommending this book to other reviewers. Five stars.

obsessed with this book!! it perfectly encapsulates what it's like to grow up online and be caught in the lifelong search for connection while capturing the changing culture and social media of the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s. Harriet Gibsone manages to write about all the embarrassing and cringeworthy stuff we do and think and the reasons behind them—the things we seldom admit to anyone else, the things that no teen coming-of-age comedy has ever explored with half as much cringe, humour, and honesty as Gibsone. there's something so special and specific about her writing, the way she blends humour and relatability, while displaying a generous amount of vulnerable, is a skill so impressive that it floored me.

as a writer myself, I found myself relating so heavily to Harriet's experiences with people she obsesses over online and thinks are too amazing and beautiful and talented to ever live up to. she's constantly acutely aware of her own feelings of imposter syndrome, feeling too basic, untalented, and stupid... always comparing herself to those around her who seem to be able to have original ideas and know how to pull the right words from their brain always at the right times, while she's too busy looking at these people for the right opinions so she can then somehow try to craft her own work and tweets. based on this book alone, however, it's exceptionally clear that Harriet is absolutely not a fake: she's the real deal and she's got the talent to prove it—even if it writing about her own life in this way is what took her to truly find it.

what I love the most about this book—aside from the entire chapter dedicated to being obsessed with Alexa Chung—is the humour, relatability, and vulnerability. there were several times I laughed out loud and then couldn't stop giggling at the absurd situations Harriet described, and the hilarious sentences she strung together. these remain present even as the book becomes darker when Harriet discusses her experiences with early menopause, a difficult pregnancy, and a traumatic birth that left her with PTSD. I experiences many emotions while reading this, both happy and sad, but it ultimately felt like a warm hug from a friend who understands.

This book was far too relatable. And it will definitely make you take a long hard look at your own online habits, particularly if, like me, you grew up in the 80s and 90s and remember a time before the internet. Laugh out loud funny and very engaging. I definitely recommend!

This was a brilliant memoir, full of humour, emotion, honesty and a refreshing take on the ups and downs of life through the online era- we can all relate to Harriet and the craziness of her life in one way or another.