Life Uploaded - Book Review

In the last few years YouTube has become a cultural phenomenon, with countless videos about anything you can think of: make-up, fashion, gaming, pranks, music, just to name a few. And with the rise of YouTube has come the discovery of hundreds of internet personalities who share their experience and expertise through easy-to-make videos. Each of these YouTube stars has a different reason for making videos; some just make them to reduce boredom, others to start a lifelong career or as a stepping stone to higher fame, and some people make videos to express their personalities to the whole internet world. No matter why any one person makes videos, YouTube is a vast world of its own. Sometimes the life of a YouTuber can seem unreal and glamorous through the lens of a camera, but here is a book that can challenge that idea. Life Uploaded by Sierra Furtado tells what it's really like to be a YouTuber, giving readers a behind-the-scenes look at what YouTubing is all about.

Harper Ambrose just wants to be noticed - by the kids at school, her friends, and especially Jack, the boy she has liked since second grade. But Harper has never been popular and now that she's in high school her awkwardness seems to have multiplied tenfold. She's just too shy to act boldly out in public; what if she embarrasses herself horribly? But that changed when she discovered YouTube. Without pressure from prying eyes or critical comments from bullies, Harper was able to bring her wonderful personality to light to the applause of hundreds of fans. But now she has a new problem. It was hard enough to balance school and a social life before, but now with her newfound fame, Harper has to literally juggle her YouTube career with school, friends, her off-and-on romance with celebrity Dalton James, and worst of all an online Twitter troll who is trashing her reputation. Who said being a teenager is easy? But it's nothing compared to being a famous one.

This was a very interesting book to read. I normally do not read books of this style or genre, but this was an interesting experiment to expand my reading repertoire. Sierra Furtado is herself a YouTuber, so I trust her interpretation of YouTube life, though I do believe that the teenage drama in this book is overly exaggerated. I do suggest with this book that parents use their own discretion and pre-read it before letting children 13 and under read it. It contains mild but frequent cursing as well as bullying - physical as well as cyber. Speaking for myself, I found I could not fully enjoy the book considering these aspects. This was a read that I would say is just fine; it was not the best read ever but it certainly was not the worst. While I did not particularly enjoy this book, I will be trying more books in this genre in the future.