REVIEW: Big Woo by Susie Day

Big Woo by Susie Day is such a wonderful little book! The first half made me grin like crazy and laugh out loud and I had the general feeling of giddy happiness reading it. And then in the second half of the book as the story touches on some more serious things, I felt my heart absolutely ache. I think it's wonderful how connected to the characters I felt, despite the structure of the novel.

The subtitle for the book is 'My not-so-secret teenage blog' and it is exactly that! Serafina67 has set up her own blog on this social networking site and uses it in order to vent about all aspects of her life. Can I stop right now and say how much I love books involving blogging? I think blogging is fantastic and has positively changed my life and I recommend that absolutely everyone should get involved.

But of course as some bloggers do (I know I certainly have!), Sera goes slightly overboard in the things that she reveals on her blog. At times, I felt like I was reading a personal diary as opposed to a blog written in a very public space, and it then came as a surprise reading comments to these very personal outpourings. Nothing seems to be off-limits, from her friends, her family and her new relationship.

Sera is finding it difficult to adjust to her parents' divorce some years ago and she's blogging about some life goals she has in order to achieve happiness. She has a great voice and goes through so many ups and downs throughout Big Woo. I really felt for her. There's this unexplained event which happened that cannot be mentioned that seems to be the main things spurring Sera on in her quest for happiness.

Even though we don't get to see the whole story around Sera and her friends, through Sera's blog posts, I felt Sera was pretty well formed. And I loved witnessing her journey, as she attempts to build up her relationships with her parents and with some friends both old and new, and with varying degrees of success. I did very much love the layout of the book, with the blog posts followed by comments. I don't always love text speak or really conversational text filled with exclamation marks and everything, but I thought everything just felt right when used in this book.

I think what Big Woo shows very well is how things often don't turn out like you think they will and that strong connections with friends and family are very important, both when things are going good and also when they're not. This is my second book that I've read and loved by Susie Day and both books come highly recommended!