Girlcrush: The #1 Sunday Times Bestseller

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As an out bisexual woman myself, and as someone who has a podcast with an advice section, I get hundreds of questions from women every day. Most of them are: “Am I bisexual? I don’t know if I am.” And I can’t tell people! I’m not you. I don’t have the answers. I don’t know your life. What I wanted to do in this novel is say that it’s OK not to know. And it’s OK to be confused. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty was a concise, witty, compassionate guide to navigating feminism. Did it achieve what you wanted it to? More than 100,000 signatures on petition to cancel Netflix show Insatiable". Ilkley Gazette. 24 July 2018 . Retrieved 28 January 2020. it’s like florence given looked up struggles of bisexual women and instead of portraying them with any kind of complexity she turned them into a caricature that had me (a bisexual woman who understands the source of the problems she was trying to portray here) rolling my eyes. like there is literally a scene in this book where the main character makes out with a man and some random girl bursts into the room, films her and then yells at her how she is a fake queer woman (the internet later on agrees with her and cancels eartha lmao) and then the next second the dude eartha made out with tells her that he thinks that women having sex with each other is hot but that he doesn’t want anything to do with her if she would date women and is disgusted by her bisexuality. i can tell that florence given really thought that she was a genius for touching upon three issues bisexual women face at one when, in reality, she only turned them into a joke by exaggerating this scene to no end.

She also advises “taking everything with a pinch of salt” when it comes to consuming content and realising it’s not a case of ‘one size fits all’. A few years ago, Florence adopted the catchphrase “It’s a wonderful day to dump him” to remind people that life is too short to stay in toxic relationships that don’t make you happy. But, as she points out, not everyone took it well. “I know I used to shout ‘dump him’ on the internet but what really annoys me about the perception of that is people thought I meant ‘everyone should dump your boyfriend’ – but really it was about saying it so women who stumble across it take it as a sign if they were already thinking about it.” The hardest thing for me is to extrapolate who I would even be without the internet. Social media is my gateway to the world and to making connections with people. When it comes to the physical boundaries I have with my phone: it’s never in my bedroom, it’s always charging in the kitchen. And when it comes to what you share online, I always take a beat. The Slumflower and Florence Given are both under the same management team, Diving Bell, committed to “representing a new breed of changemakers and innovators”.

Lucy Cocoran

yes, i read the notorious livetweet thread instead of reading the actual book (if you can call it that) itself. i am absolutely fine with that. in fact, i think i could have gone my entire life without being aware of this book's existence and been fine with it. alas, i decided not to know peace. The distance between her online and offline self grows further and further apart until something dark happens that leads her into total self-destruction, forcing Eartha to make a choice; which version of herself should she kill off? There are parts of this book that were so ridiculous that it made me angry (why had she never heard of an INCEL? I know that biphobia is a thing but why are people acting like it's so ALIEN?). However, I’d say this book was a bit confused about what it wanted to do. It was almost like two books in one: the first book describing Eartha’s sexual awakening as a bisexual woman, breaking the cycle of abusive relationships in her family; while the second narrative focuses on her journey on social media and the perils of the internet. There were also these parts called the “director’s notes” where the narrator panned out a camera on Eartha, or the situation unfolding, which I didn’t think worked that well. Touted as a modern retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, the book focuses on Eartha's internal struggle finding her true self, and makes for a dark and thrilling read you won't be able to put down.

Wray, Rebecca (18 December 2020). "From The Slumflower to Florence Given: why influencer books about feminism seem so similar". The Conversation . Retrieved 20 December 2020.

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Florence Given (born 1998 [1] [2]) is a British illustrator, writer, feminist social activist, and influencer. As a queer woman in the public eye, dating has evolved and changed with her success too. But how much of her own dating experience is mirrored in her new book? “I've had many women ghost me before,” she admits. “You start to protect your ego and identity. For a while I'd almost projected my past onto people that were completely innocent and assumed they were going to do what all of the others did. But I’ve learned to treat people as an individual.” Journalist Moya Lothian-McClean said: “I’m still thinking about Florence Given’s prose… Once again, publishers and editors involved in that… have a word with yourselves.” And I couldn’t have put it better myself, really. Related stories recommended by this writer: I don’t think I can explain it to you because I agree that Love Island is awful, but I still think it’s entertaining as hell. I can see why people are drawn to it, because it’s entertainment. It’s funny. That’s just reality TV. My generation is a lot more progressive [than previous generations]: we’re learning. So many more people are coming out as trans and queer because there are examples of it now. And I don’t think that you can ever give yourself permission to be something that you feel unless you see an example of it. Hampson, Laura (3 August 2019). "Meet Florence Given: the influencer telling women to dump their boyfriends". Evening Standard.