Book Review: Don't Call Me Baby by Gwendolyn Heasley (no spoilers)

Book: Don't Call Me Baby
Author: Gwendolyn Heasley
Publication: April 22nd, 2014
Source: Publisher for Review
Read: August 13th-16th,2014
Summary (from Goodreads):

All her life, Imogene has been known as the girl on THAT blog.

Imogene's mother has been writing an incredibly embarrassing, and incredibly popular, blog about her since before she was born. Hundreds of thousands of perfect strangers knew when Imogene had her first period. Imogene's crush saw her "before and after" orthodontia photos. But Imogene is fifteen now, and her mother is still blogging about her, in gruesome detail, against her will.

 When a mandatory school project compels Imogene to start her own blog, Imogene is reluctant to expose even more of her life online...until she realizes that the project is the opportunity she's been waiting for to tell the truth about her life under the virtual microscope and to define herself for the first time.

 Don't Call Me Baby is a sharply observed and irrepressibly charming story about mothers and daughters, best friends and first crushes, and the surface-level identities we show the world online and the truth you can see only in real life.

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*I received Don't Call Me Baby free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I received no compensation and all thoughts and feelings are my own.*

My Thoughts:

Don't Call Me Baby is a very, light fun read. It is about Imogene, who has been the girl on the blog her whole life. She is more popularly referred to as Babylicious  on her mom's blog where her mom calls herself Mommylicious. Now Imogene is 15 and she is ready to stop having every detail about her life on the internet. The problem is getting through to her mom, but when Imogene and her friend Sage discover that they can use their school project blogs to get through to their mothers.

As I mentioned before this is a very light read and quick read. I found myself connected to the characters easily and I understood their situation. I compared their mother's blogs to the mommy vloggers I watch on Youtube. Their children are young now so they don't care that they are on Youtube, but is there going to become a point where the child is ready to stop, but the mother isn't. I think that is the case in Don't Call Me Baby. Meg (Imogene's mom) is trying to hold on to her little girl. She wants to keep her close and she wants everything to remain the same. The thing is Imogene is growing up.

I enjoyed the blog posts included in this book. It gave us as readers a look into what Imogene was going through, and also what Imogene and Sage were sharing on the internet. The actions of Imogene and Sage's mother were something I didn't like about this book. I think they refused to listen to their children and did not respect their children's want for privacy. They acted controlling and authoritative, which often with teenagers cause them to rebel more rather than obey.

Overall I enjoyed Don't Call Me Baby. It was a great look into another side of blogging we rarely think about as book bloggers. I don't blog about people and I rarely blog about myself even so there isn't too much to worry about as in those reasons to shut down my blog. It was an interesting read on a unique topic and has got me interested in reading another book by this author.