I requested a copy of this on an impulse - having reading a positive review somewhere - after finding out that the author was a similar age to me (born in the late 1980s) and that the book focused on searching for connection online as a millennial; how a life spent chronically "online" in one's formative teenage years can shape you as a person.

This is far from the first book to tackle this topic, but it is by far the most relatable, honest and engaging take on the topic I've read thus far. I don't think I've felt quite so "seen" by a memoir before, and Gibsone doesn't shy away from some of her most cringeworthy or embarrassing moments. Recommended!

When I first requested an ARC of this book, I didn't realise it was a memoir and thought it was a novel! It was only upon starting to read the book that I Googled the author (ironic considering the main theme of the book) and realised. I was intrigued as I knew nothing about Harriet but her career in music journalism sounded cool. And I always seem to enjoy reading memoirs by women I know nothing about, for some reason. I guess because despite them not being particularly famous, they've still managed to get a book deal so their lives must be interesting in some way!

I found this book hugely chaotic but I really enjoyed that. I'm only a few years younger than Harriet so her references to the internet growing up, and music and culture, made me really happy. I definitely became obsessed with the internet myself and spent a lot of time on forums and chatrooms as a teenager.

She talks about a lot of serious topics, so it's definitely not all light-hearted hahaha moments. She's very honest about her troubles growing up, her online stalking, career hiccups and later health issues with early menopause.

Highly recommend if you enjoy a good warts-and-all tale, especially about growing up in the 90s!

This was enjoyable but at times seriously disturbing and I feel impressed Harriet Gibsone shared so much. It's a memoir through her time spent online. A millennial, she starts with flirting on MSN, finding strangers in chatrooms, asking for their a/s/l, starting a MySpace. We move on to Facebook, random Google searches of her boyfriend, his ex, her exes, a colleague, etc... It gets really disturbing when she fixates on a stranger she has never spoken to but sees daily while waiting at the bus stop. Her pregnancy through IVF is told through the Mom influencers she follows, though Ella (of Deliciously Ella), trying to connect with other mums after a traumatic birth...
Overall I loved the confessional style, although I wished there was more of a structure. I was unsure of where we were at times, because it wasn't always linear. I wonder if it would have worked better as essays but I found it pleasant nonetheless and I liked her humour.

I requested this from NetGalley because my non-fiction reading had been leaning towards being almost exclusively true crime books and I thought I’d try and broaden my horizons slightly. The synopsis sounded interesting and as someone who spends a reasonable amount of time on social media I thought there would probably be things I could relate to in this.

This has honestly been a really difficult review for me to write. I didn’t enjoy this book very much at all and it’s difficult to comment when the book is autobiographical as I obviously don’t want to be rude.

I do think the advertising has been slightly misleading. The synopsis makes it sound like the main focus is her struggle with early menopause, IVF and HRT but actually that only took up about the last third of the book (if I’m being generous, it may have even been slightly less) and even then the focus was more on her internet life rather than the actual issues she was dealing with.

Every time I started to find something a little interesting we were back to her obsession with doing an almost FBI level deep dive of someone’s internet presence. She touches on the problems that arose with people who had had babies just before the start of the pandemic and how many check ups were missed and how little support people had, which is such an important issue but it’s barely touched on before we’re moving on to her accidentally “liking” an old Instagram post of someone connected to her therapist.

Maybe it’s just that I struggled to relate to Gibsone. I use social media quite a lot but I can’t say that I am even remotely near the level she is and, to be honest, I just don’t care enough to want to go searching into people’s lives the way she does.

I do believe that more and more young people are struggling to see the difference between reality and what people show to the world via their social media pages and it’s important to educate more young people about this as social media is likely here to stay and can be such a positive thing.

Gibsone’s writing style wasn’t really for me. There was lots of hyperbole and whilst I’m sure it works in a journalistic way as she’s obviously very good at her job, it just didn’t do it for me in this longer form and I really did have to force myself to keep reading at times.

Overall, I’m always glad I’ve tried new things but this one missed the mark for me.

I wasn't sure if this was a novel or a memoir at first. Music journalist Harriet Gibsone spent her youth compulsively searching the Internet, obsessing about celebrities and and imaging herself in 'parasocial relationships’ with some of them. She then had a devastating diagnosis of early onset menopause in her late twenties and underwent IVF, HRT and other medical treatments. What starts off as an entertaining and comic account becomes a more reflective view of balancing life online with the realities of illness and motherhood. A very honest and courageous account with a lot of dark humour.

Thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the advanced reader copy. This book is published on May 25.

I originally requested this one because it was about early menopause etc and I’m also going through my own gynae issues. However, I found that the author was around the same age as me and I resonated with a lot of the other things she talked about!

The writing was excellent and the second half of the book kept me hooked. I wasn’t so sold on the first half, it seemed a bit haphazard, but definitely worth keeping going.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for an honest review.

This book started out really good but then lost its way. I felt I was forcing myself to read it and not enjoying it.

'Is This Okay' by Harriet Gibsone is like watching a demolition derby that’s starting to get out of hand; you go from mildly entertained to watching the flames rising and carnage turning bloody, and you find yourself starting to think “um, maybe someone should stop this.”

In the beginning, I enjoyed 'Is This Okay' as I grew up in more or less the same era, when the internet was starting to become “a thing”, with MSN, MySpace, then later Facebook, Twitter, etc. I felt a connection and a shared experience with Harriet during her school years and when she started university.

Sadly, as the book continued into her adult life, I started to feel less connected and more worried about her. Her addiction to the internet and cyberstalking celebrities or any random person she meets (seriously, no one is safe) became less funny and relatable, and instead more deranged and a bit unhinged. She comes across as proud of her cyber sleuthing and she is so keen to bare everything in her book, I’m surprised no one took her hand and told her that maybe this isn’t something the whole world needs to know.

I’d be a bit more understanding if she was a well known person and we could laugh about the funny situations she’s gotten into - but I’ve never heard of her (and neither has other reviewers). I initially thought she might have been a fictional character, and this was a Bridget Jones’ style diary, but a quick Google showed me she is real. She’s very self-deprecating about her work, and I can’t tell if she’s even a good music journalist or not, or if she’s deliberately being negative for the humour.

In the end, there’s no real moral to the story or moment of reflection. She doesn’t seem all that upset about the things she does, and I’m baffled why this previously unknown someone needed to write their life biography that has just shown the world that she should not be trusted with a computer or smartphone.

All in all, it’s a funny book at times but cringy the next. I’m off now to delete my Facebook and to block her before she looks me up next. 2.5 stars.

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.

This was a different sort of read for me - I never normally go for biographies as I feel you really need to have an interest in the subject otherwise it’s just a massive drag. This one, well, it’s difficult to quantify. What did I enjoy? The writing was great and I honestly remember the time period discussed, albeit from a male perspective. However, it was a lot darker in places than I was expecting? I guess it made me uncomfortable but was that the purpose of the author being so honest about their experiences and thoughts? I’m not sure. The difficulty is I don’t even know who I would recommend this to. It’s an interesting, almost voyeuristic view of the authors life, but also a difficult snapshot as well. Take from that what you will.

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 very different read for me, it did feel like I was reading someone's diary. It felt very personal, and yes there were some funny parts, and hard hitting ones. It's a strange one to be honest, I wanted to keep going to find out how it went, but wasn't in a rush either. I appreciate the chance to read it.

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.

Very enjoyable, the author was born in a similar era to myself so her anecdotes about growing up in the infancy of the internet and the joys of dial up connections etc are very relatable. She gives us a tour of her life from the awkwardness of adolescence onwards and with a fantastic soundtrack of her life by referencing the contemporary music. Music tends to transport me immediately back to past times and how I was thinking and feeling at the time so this is very evocative and great nostalgia with lots of great laugh out loud moments to boot. The depth of recall are astounding and the little details are very welcome, many times I thought to myself ‘I’d totally forgotten about that’ but the memories of the era are spot on so either the author kept a diary of those times, she has an incredible memory or her research is impeccable.
The honestly, particularly for me the thoughts and feelings of the early, hazy sleep deprived, days of motherhood are brilliant and I’m sure a lot of people will be relieved and glad ‘it’s not just me’ as she takes the rose tinted specs of social media off. Heartfelt, honest, relatable and laugh out loud funny, such a refreshing read and with areas that others may fear to read such as the realities of IVF and menopause. Fabulous, highly recommend.

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.

Not my usual genre and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It took a while for me to get into it, not knowing where it was going to go or what I could expect. As I write this review, the words that spring to mind are amusing, shocking, unhinged, raw, refreshing, unsettling. A complete mixed bag!

The author unashamedly shares the most intimate and embarrassingly inappropriate journey from teen to mum but I couldn’t shake the cringe factor so many times!

I’m 41 and understood the majority of the references throughout the book, and I enjoyed being transported back in time to my teenage years but ultimately, I didn’t find this a comfortable read. It may be because it’s not my usual genre and I usually have a different reading experience, but I’m sure some will find this book really relatable

2⭐️

I really enjoyed this book and found it well written. The first third was full of some great 90s / early 00s nostalgia from around the same time that I was growing up. It sent me right back to the era when the internet had just started to gain popularity in people's homes.

The middle bit was really interesting, covering when the author was a music journalist working at The Fly and interviewing famous indie bands like The Arctic Monkeys.

The third part gets darker and goes on to discuss some deep topics including health struggles (early menopause), IVF and the recurring theme of mental health / internet scrolling and comparison in the age of social media.

I'd highly recommend the book if you're a millennial and love memoirs. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book.

As a Millennial, this book resonated with me quite a lot regarding the internet and how this impacted my life growing up. However, I found it quite a mixed bag of stories that made me lose track of what I was reading. I expected more from it, it wasn't what I expected.

Is This OK? by Harriet Gibsone explores how the internet and being online has impacted her, her pursuit of a career in journalism, and her experience of early menopause.

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.