I’ve long been a fan of Nicola Doherty’s books and I requested Lola Offline from NetGalley ages ago and for some reason I didn’t get round to reading it until just recently. Like Doherty’s other books, I really enjoyed Lola Offline.

Lola Offline tells the story of Delilah who has fled her normal life to live in Paris under the moniker of Lola. Delilah is fleeing from a mistake that she has made that ended up making her internet famous for all the wrong reasons.

Rather than embracing her mistake and dealing with the fall out she opts to hide. But in a world saturated by social media you begin to wonder can a person really ever truly hide from their past?

Nicola Doherty’s story really hit a nerve with me for two reasons. The first being because I wrote a blog post once that ended up getting a ridiculous number of views within the space of 24 hours. Now don’t get me wrong, for someone who blogs that is generally a good thing, however, the post was not about books it was about a health condition I had and I was very unsettled by the amount of people that read it. I got over it but for a good week I felt really unnerved. The second reason is that I work in a high school and the amount of problems that we encounter on a daily basis because of Instagram or Facebook is ridiculous. The insidiousness of social media is becoming more and more prevalent and Doherty addresses this very matter. Personally, I think she is brave to do so. If just one member of her target audience of young adults reads this book and thinks about something before they post it on social media then Doherty has made a massive impact.

Lola Offline by Nicola Doherty is available now.

For more information regarding Nicola Doherty (@nicoladoherty_) please visit www.nicoladohertybooks.com.

For more information regarding Hachette Children’s Group (@HachetteKids) or Orion Children’s Books (@the_orionstar) please visit www.hachettechildrens.co.uk.

A really relevant and thought provoking YA book about a girl who's mistake on twitter goes viral. This shows how someones whole life can be affected by one mistake. A must read!

After Delilah makes a mistake online for all to see, she wants a fresh start somewhere new and away from all she knows so she decides to move, alone!

Now under the new name Lola, leaving all she knows behind and moving to Paris alone she meets Vee and Fletcher whilst still thinking about Jules, Nisha and Ellie, her old friends back home.

However, when students at this school find out just what was tweeted by her they react in many ways. Her new friends still like her whilst Tariq, her could become boyfriend needs space to go over things as culture and racial issues are bought into the mix...

A pleasant short read for teens, raising issues around social media backlash and how words can really hurt not just you.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Such a believable story and incredibly contemporary featuring issues that could potentially affect any modern teenager. If you are a young adult, or have a young adult then this is worth reading, as it deals with after effects of when you make a mistake online and it goes viral.

In Delilah Hoover's case, the level of notoriety she gained, left her feeling friendless, alone and in need of an escape. So she persuades her parents to let her go to an International boarding school in Paris, France, for her to study for the IB (International Baccalaureate) instead of her A-Levels.

Not only does she change her country but she becomes Lola Maxwell, a girl with no social media accounts at all, and a fear that everyone at her new school will find out her biggest secret. I loved seeing a boarding school in Paris, and meeting all the various children that go there.

As Lola's time in Paris progresses, we are introduced to a variety of potential friends for her, each with their own personality quirks, and also we are shown Paris, not the major tourist attractions as such, but some of the hidden gems of the city too.

I enjoyed seeing how Lola overcame her experience and starts to learn new things not only in her school subjects but also about herself too. She never was the most outgoing or popular sort of girl, has some geekish tendencies and as a result the way she copes is even more admirable.

Although I'm an adult, I still found myself completely able to empathise with Lola and her predicament, possibly because you need to be so careful with social media or it can be a nightmare, that and I've always loved stories set in schools.

Lola Offline is a captivating story that actually anyone who deals with social media could gain something from.

Thanks to Orion and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

'Lola Offline' is a novel about Delilah whose twit goes viral for all the wrong reasons turning her teenage life into nightmare. Apart from many moments which are rightfully making us more aware of drawbacks of social networking there's a lot about being tolerant and careful in our judgements, which is all well from my point of view as an educator. There's one big BUT that made reading of this book a lot less pleasurable - I couldn't stop comparing it to another book with a plot similar to 'Lola Offline'. 'Anna and the French Kiss' by Stephanie Perkins also describes a story of a teenage girl who starts studying in Paris and falls in love with a guy, who at the very beginning of the book, is seariously involved in a relationship with 'a perfect girl' (who is out of the picture at some point and guess what? yes, Delilah or rather Lola and the guy fall in love with each other).