EyeLeash: A Blog Novel (edition 2009)

Jess C. Scott's debut novel is more than outstanding. It proves that there could be a useful reason for blogging. It's certainly difficult to add to the reviews already given since they tell the wonders of his book far better than I good but... Eyelash tells the story of a seventeen year old girl coming into a difficult part of her life in a tech-world such as we live in today and much like any teenager she blogs. I found the way this story is told very interesting and not hard to follow as I feared it might be. Jade is a compelling character that I'm sure many girls her age will understand. It's a YA title that can be read by those older and still be well received and enjoyed. Brilliant work for this first time author! ( )

Jade is a 17-year old virgin and this book is her private blog. Her blog is like the diary used to be to those of us from prehistoric times. Jade writes about friendship, love, lust, and sex. She shares her deepest and most intimate thoughts. We follow Jade and get to know her through her journey of self-discovery.

While I found the format a little distracting and, at times, difficult to get lost in, I'm sure it will hold tremendous appeal to the younger generation that has grown up on computers. Jess Scott has a gift with words. Her writing draws you right in and her characters become like old friends. Without a doubt, Scott has a long and prosperous writing career ahead of her. ( )

Eyeleash is the debut novel by Jess C. Scott which tells the story of a seventeen year old girl named Jade Ashton whose curiosity about her sexuality prompts her to write a private blog to document a most peculiar time in her life. Eyeleash is a very unique and avant-garde novel unlike anything I’ve read before. The story is written mostly in the form of a blog breaking form only to include passages that are either written in verse or some form of stylized text. The story itself is interesting, though a bit redundant.

Although Eyeleash is an easy read, there were several moments when I felt as though I were rereading the same passages over and over again. This stems from the fact that Jade’s rekindled infatuation with her schoolyard crush Novan causes her to indulge in a lot of back and forth with herself, tirelessly trapping her in a state of indecision which is captured by the author perhaps too effectively.

My only real complaint with this novel is that it’s a bit one-dimensional. Although the chick-lit crowd might not be bothered by it, I felt the sexual overtones of the book were presented as overkill. To be honest, I felt it was sometimes oppressive. As I read Eyeleash I couldn’t help but wish that there was more to the story than just the constant obsession with sex, sex, and more sex. Overall, the book came off like the racy editorial content of a typical woman’s magazine.

With that said, it was intriguing to know Jade’s intimate thoughts and the manner in which she perceived the events in her life. I just wish there was more to the story than her obsession with Novan to give it more substance.

Ultimately, I enjoyed reading Eyeleash and can honestly say that Scott is a very creative and extremely talented author. As with her second novel, 4:Play: A Contemporary Cocktail of Erotic Short Stories, I was entranced by Scott’s ability to transport the reader into her story. Because her sophomore novel is the superior work, I would recommend that readers check out Eyeleash first before moving on to her latest book. I look forward to seeing what Scott comes up with next.
3.5 stars ( )

Jess C Scott’s novel EyeLeash/a blog novel (260 pages) chronicles the relationship between 17-year-old Jade Ashton and a young man named Novan over a period of nine months, a portentous time frame and no doubt intentional. Scott is a clever audacious writer, and though EyeLash might first appear as a typical adolescent blog, bloated with self-importance, the novel soon reveals a compelling story, complex characters and wit to spare. Its subtitle “a blog novel” is both accurate and misleading. Though it shares many characteristics of blogs (150 million of them at last count), the “blog” that Jade creates is not meant to communicate. Jade writes, “Blogging awful poetry, daily events nobody really cares about, or ceaselessly complaining/rambling on the same old things, is stupid. Now I blog too, but this is a private one. Unsearchable on Google, and password-enabled. So it’s just me. I can be as boring and mundane as I like, talk to myself if everyone online has the (Away) or (Busy) sign on, and not worry about stepping on anybody’s toes. Let’s see what I’ll record here over this year.” In effect, the blog functions as setting, familiarizing the reader not with street names or land formations, but URLs, IM formats and the abbreviated lingua franca of online chatting. If you’re looking for naturalistic description you won’t find it here.

Blog trappings aside, EyeLeash is a descendent of the epistolary novel, popularized in the 18th Century by Samuel Richardson’s novels Pamela and Clarissa, with recent examples being Beverly Cleary’s Dear Dr. Henshaw and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Epistolary novels contain letters (correspondence), but also journal/diary entries, snippets of written documents from other sources, dialogue, etc. Scott makes good use of all these forms (exchanging e-mails or even lines of single lines of dialogue in IM is not congruent to snail mail but comparable) to reflect Jade’s life and her problems. At the heart of the story is Jade’s relationship with Novan, a boy she has known all her life and even dated a few years back. Novan has matured physically (all sources report the dude as HOT), become a musician/artist and is avidly pursuing his career. Jade is trying to come to terms with how she feels about Novan and how he feels about her, especially about her body, a concern that provokes much self-examination, physically and psychologically. Will this budding tentative romance develop? Will they have sex? Forces are at work to disrupt the relationship. All of Jade’s friends are sexual sophisticates. Everyone knows how to “Fuck Like a Porn Star.” Sexual opportunity, whether straight, gay, bi or through virtual reality is readily available (sex falls like the gentle rain from heaven sent). Miraculously, Jade is a virgin (an echo of American Beauty), which within her set seems at best quaint and at worst decadent, an affront to the zeitgeist. Should she have sex with her girlfriends (she tiptoes around this one, and outsiders assume she already has.)? If she had anal sex would that still qualify her as a virgin (a nice point, technically yes, but morally...)? If she has sex with a well-hung dude will it stretch out her vagina out and make her incompatible with other men of more modest endowment? Jade’s adventures in masturbation, which take up much space, would make for an X version of Home Alone. If Eyeleash is starting to sound like Terry Southern’s novel Candy, it isn’t. Scott manages to make all of this less prurient than a prudent send-up of the top ten staples of women’s magazines. Jade is supremely aware of the superficiality of her concerns. This is what separates Jade from her breathless friends and provides the humor. One example: In a discussion with a friend about an engaging sexual position, Jade is lead to believe that her friend had actually read the Kama Sutra, and duly impressed at her friend’s ambitious reading, but her friend, SeXy nAuGhTy BiTcHy Me, has gleaned the info from an article in a recent 100 % Woman magazine.

Jade’s numerous conversations with Novan, which include plans to exchange nude photographs and discussions about BD/DS/SM (if you’re drawing a blank, read the book) are an effort to humanize our contemporary obsession with perfect bodies and perfect sex, a dehumanization ably abetted by the Web. As Jade moves toward her decision regarding Novan (can she no longer trust the boy that she traded coded messages with in grade school?), Scott captures with admirable authenticity the struggle of a young adult to shed the ephemeral for the permanency of an authentic relationship. Although the raw language is a problem, Eyeleash is a love story that will appeal to intelligent young adults and others that were.—Alex Austin ( )

I loved the format that this book was written. It’s very realistic and describes all the things a girl goes through while still being interesting. It was an easy read and I had trouble putting down. ( )

Ok, so I might be the first to say I wasn't that thrilled with it. I found it hard to stay with. There was way too much sex talk. What was the plot to the story? ( )

This book was amazing. It seemed to immediately draw me in from the very beginning. It's the funny, coming-of-age tale of Jade Ashton and a guy she can't get enough of, Novan. Determined to lose her virginity and blogging constantly, this is one book I just couldn't put down. ( )

Although Jade and Novan have known each other for years, they are rediscovering each other as young adults in this unique book, EyeLeash: A Blog Novel by Jess C Scott. The reader experiences Jade’s excitement when Novan logs on and the characters discuss their sexual fantasies. Novan’s blogs both entice and confuse Jade.

I enjoyed this book and found it difficult to put down. The online format of EyeLeash: A Blog Novel is intriguing. Jess C Scott lets the reader in on a private online experience which will awaken the first love experience in all of us.

This review was originally posted on my review blog : Falling Off The Shelf.

Jade Ashton is 17 years old, and she's a virgin. It's hard being the only virgin amongst her group of friends, because they are all sexually active and pretty much flaunt it by talking about their own escapades. Jade wants nothing more than to lose her virginity, but she's afraid of a few things. STD's and pregnancy are big issues for Jade, as they should be.

Despite the fact that blogging is so 'not cool' these days, Jade decides to create her own personal blog. When I say personal, I mean, personal, as in, no one else can even read it but herself. She uses it as her own personal diary to convey her thoughts, feelings, and other tidbits that she comes across while surfing the net and reading magazines. It's not long before she starts talking to an old friend, Novan, who used to be such a geek.

Novan has really filled out, and now he's a hot rocker, how cool is that! Jade has a hard time keeping her hormones in check when she's either talking to, or blogging about him. He becomes Jades ticket out of being a virgin, if only he'll agree to being 'friends-with-benefits'. Will it work out?

EyeLeash is most definitely a great read. I was a little skeptical when I saw it, because it's all written out in blog entries, text messages, and instant messages. I was pleasantly surprised that I really enjoyed this novel. I felt like I knew Jade, and was extremely interested in seeing how things turned out for her. She's laugh out loud hilarious, as well as shy, which is kind of an odd combination. Jade would be one of those people that you would have to get to know before they'd really open up and show you who they really were.

I loved how Jade was able to speak her mind in her blog, telling us exactly how certain situations made her feel. Sometimes she got so angry that it was like she just typed out random thoughts that confused me, but they were meant to be that way, because who is completely logical when they're ready to tear someones head off? I for one am not.

There were a few things about Jade that I really disliked though. She is a shallow character, pretty much only out for looks when it comes to the opposite sex. She also had a spending problem. The prices of the things that she would purchase were completely ridiculous, which I found confusing because she didn't have a very good job. I guess this was the author's way of telling us that it's when your young that you'll be silly and screw up your credit by maxing out your credit cards.

All in all I really enjoyed this novel, and was actually able to read it within a two day span. If I didn't have to work a full time job in between my reading, I probably could have read it in one sitting. I laughed out loud through most of this book, and at other times I clenched my teeth because I was either angry at Jade herself or one of the other characters. I would recommend this read to young adults at least 17 and older, because there is a lot of sexual talk, and some crude words. I'd like to thank the author, Jess C. Scott for allowing me to review this book, it truly was a pleasure! ( )

Oh, the drama! Oh, the angst!

I recently finished reading EyeLeash: A Blog Novel, and I must say, it was very much like reading an ACTUAL blog by an ACTUAL teenager. So, at least it's believable.

But, wow! The protagonist, Jade, is very, very annoying.

The most annoying factor of her is that she has a very one-track mind. Every single post in her blog deals in some ways with her various fantasies, as well as her attempts via chat and text messages to make said fantasies come true.

The other annoying factor is the level. of. total. drama. But, I see that when reading normal blogs...

The plot: Set in Singapore, a teenage, Jade Ashton, chronicles her life, and of her obsession with Novan Chang, a musician who once had a crush on her. She offsets her negative emotions by shopping, and chronicles every painful detail of ever designer item she purchases.

For what it's worth, the novel did, in fact, read like a blog. So, there's credit where credit's due. But in the same vein, you could get just as much out of reading any other teenager's blog from front to back.

If you like that sort of thing, or want to read about a girl obsessed with sex, then you may enjoy this book. But if you're like me, you're best best is to avoid plucking EyeLeash out and reading it. ( )

This book is excellent! Very funny, very true to life, and written in an experimental blog-format. Cutting edge stuff! This is the 'Bridget Jones' Diary' for the 21st Century!! It's been a while since I was a teenager, but I do try to keep up to date with what's happening in the teen world through relatives and friends. I found this book was a great way of bringing to the forefront many issues which concern teenagers these days. There are a lot of references to sex, but I feel this is necessary, in order to get certain messages across to teenagers. I like the idea of using a protagonist who is a virgin to show how teenagers feel peer pressure to have sex at an early age; and also the way the author has used 'cool' characters to send a positive message that relationships are much more about who you can trust rather than about looks and sex.
Seventeen year-old Jade is in love with Novan, but she's not really sure if she is in love with him. She used to go to school with him, and she knows he fancied her then. When she meets Novan again, years later, he is a good looking bass player and she begins to correspond by email with him. Her feelings for him start to grow, but she is confused. Jade keeps a private blog, instead of a diary, setting out her thoughts and feelings. I think the author has done a great job, getting into the mind of a teenager, and has written a book containing many positive messages for teens. It's written in a language that they will understand, and deals with a lot of issues they are facing; very modern, lots of text abbreviated words (I had to look up a lot of these like: ROFL!!). It's the story of one girl's transition from child/teen to adult, and is written in a very humourous way. There are signs of comic genius in this writer. I really enjoyed reading this book and would highly recommend it, not only to teens, but to anyone who has ever really been a teenager!! ( )

This was a great read. Took me back about 10 years to when I was 17. This book gave a fair insight into what it's like to be a 17 year old girl growing up today. I think it's an easy read for just about anyone who needs a throw back to their youth, also a good read for girls in this age group now, at least they'll know what they feel is normal at this time in their lives. My only negative comment is some of the slang. I was able to figure it all out but a couple times I was lost in the lingo. ( )

This was a wonderful novel, Jade is a very realistic character and her thoughts and emotions are exactly what I feel a teenage girls would be like, and are like for some.
Jade is relatable, intriguing, and interesting. The Blog format captures all of her emotion and strife with and about Novan. Jade’s sexual desires and teenage thought are unnervingly real.

I think that it was written perfectly for an audience of that age group with the use of slang and abbreviations, but if it is meant for a broader audience it should be taken into consideration that some of it is not that easy to understand and read. ( )

Being around Jade's age, I can honestly say this is a wonderfully realistic protrayal of what it's like to be a young woman today. I can see the things Jade and Novan deal with all around me, and the fact that they are stated so straight-fowardly and honestly in blog form make it all the more relatable.

Jade really captures what it's like to have to face the double standards between men and women when it comes to sexuality. Teenage and 20-something guys are notorious for their sexuality, but a female who is comfortable with her own sexuality is automatically classified as a slut. Any young woman will agree with Jade about girls having it tougher when it comes to sex and all the emotional turmoil that comes with it.

Overall it was a very smooth read, I read it all in one go (just finished now, a little before 6AM). I love the laid back language and frankness of it all. Definitely very realistic (besides Jade's excessive spending, I wish I had cash like that!). At times it was like Jade was reading my mind. I also loved the clever names for some of the shops/clubs. Would love to see a sequel...

On another note... I'd kill for a guy like Novan ;) ( )

I've got say, I had my doubts in the beginning if I'd get through this novel. Not because it sounded unrealistic. It was too realistic. All those memories of those teenage years; those ridiculous things we all worry about that seem so important, the insecurities, the confusion, the haze of emotions. It was all fully reflected in this novel. If I were to pull up most teenagers blogs right now, I'd likely find similar entries with similar problems.

I loved how well all the various forms of communication being used--the blog, instant messaging, texting...all things that are second nature to your average teenager. So many aspects of this novel felt very modern, and very real.

That made it hard to get through at first. It might not be so for a teenager. Actually, I'd say a lot of teenagers would better enjoy and relate to the earlier parts. For someone older, it's more like finding an old diary and wondering "uh, was was I thinking back then?" I kept on reading though, not letting the teenager-ness get to me. After all, Jade is a teenager. And then when I got around to the middle, that's when things started to get really good.

It's that slow, but necessary transformation that I loved. When she realizes what it is she truly wants, and what Novan wants. And I have to say, I won't be forgetting those last few "entries" any time soon. I was close to tears near the end, those kind of tears when you're sad and yet happy at the same time.

There was a lot of humour and social commentary in this novel, and I enjoyed it. I couldn't help but agree with Jade and Novan on a lot of points. I would definitely recommend this book to others. Especially women. While this showcases a lot of insecurities women have, there's a lot of empowering messages within it. I'd recommend it for that alone.

It ends on a nice note, leaving the reader room to ponder over what happened next, but in a satisfying way.

Review also posted at Goodreads and my blog (http://basementtime.livejournal.com/4133.html)

Note: book received through LibraryThing member giveaway program ( )

I would recommend this book to anyone who is, once was, or who is currently raising a teenage girl!

As I began reading this book, it quickly drew me back to memories of my own teenage years. Age had dimmed my recollection of the emotions I had felt during that time of my life, but while reading this book it jogged a lot of memories for me. I believe that is a definite sign of a well crafted book!

The blog style narrative was interesting and fresh! Though I will say it did take a bit of getting used to.

The characters were well crafted, and I truly liked Jade!

While this book was far from my normal genre, I will make a point to read more from Jess C. Scott in the future! ( )

This is a story about a young girl, Jade, and the chronicling of her pre-relationship with her 'friend' Novan. It starts off with her sending him her entire private blog as an attachment - very brave thing to do!
Now at first, while going through her thoughts, I started thinking that this girl is really indecisive and annoying, but I checked myself afterwards, and thought back to the journals I kept when I was younger; they do sound remarkably similar! If I were writing my blog journal it would probably sound something like that. One thing I wondered about was how much it was focused on one subject: Novan and her thoughts on sex (ok two) - a real blog would usually detail other events in life; but if it did it would weaken the main story and draw it out unnecessarily. Whole thought processes going on here.

The blog is funny, sometimes using lots of sexual humor. I thought this one quote was particularly funny and the kind of weird logic that many girls have: 'If I were taller, we'd have the best sex ever." Haha!

It reads just like a blog, revealing a little at a time about Jade's life and self as she goes along. Even some nonsensical things like blogging at the supermarket are the kind of things anyone would do.

One thing which I think everyone will notice as they read on is that MOST of the communication that goes on here is throug digital means: blog, texts, IMs, emails. It's rather telling of how we live life - and even experience love - in the digital age. As she finds out more about Novan through his own blog (and the online tests he takes, which she takes right along afterwards), she even provides insight for herself.

Throughout the first half of the book, I wondered if I could form an attachment/identify with our heroine, but after certain events came to pass, I found myself feeling for her. She experienced what every teenage girl has: crushes, sexual frustration, confusion, indecisiveness, insecuritues, PMS. Her recounting of her personal sexual experiences first shocked me and then I found myself thinking at times: you go Jade! Although I would definitely say this was a book for girls, it would do men some good to read this, I'd say, to give a better understanding of what girls really go through, in an honest and funny way.

I recently read a couple of the Twilight saga books, and couldn't help but noticing several differences (they are both books I feel are targeted for the young adult audience - but the resemblance ends there) in the two protagonists. Jade is not infuriatingly self-deprecating the way Bella Swan (main character from Twilight) is, among many other differences. She's got confidence, and it's refreshing to read a book about a girl who actually thinks she's got a good body. I think that's so important.

One thing which confused me was that although the book was meant to be set in America, I felt that a lot of Britishisms were used, which threw me for a loop. Words like: loo, cheers, even phwoar(!), things I identify very much with my life in England.

All in all, it was a funny, interesting and touching book, and my first e-book! I would recommend this to friends, although they'd be too prudish to read lol. Still, it was a great, contemporary, enlightening read. ( )