Log Off

by Kristen Felicetti

In the early 2000s, from a dial-up connection in a Western New York suburb, sixteen-year-old Ellora Gao logs on to the Internet to start a secret LiveJournal. Abandoned as a child by her troubled mother and left with her former stepfather Brian, an emotionally distant alcoholic, Ellora hopes to find the close relationships online that are missing from her real life.

But her online diary isn’t entirely serious, it’s also where she can gossip and rant about music, books, and everyone at her high school, including two intriguing new friends, Alice, a reformed bad girl, and Tiff, a cocky musical prodigy. As the school year unfolds, Ellora shares every challenge she faces with her growing LiveJournal readership: memories of her estranged mother, frustration with Brian’s lack of parenting, concern for Alice’s health, romantic feelings for Tiff, and her place in a post-Y2K world on the cusp of major change.

Genres: Amazon, Young Adult, Historical, Coming Of Age

298 pages, Paperback

Published June 4, 2024

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed Felicetti’s debut novel! This made me nostalgic not only for the early 2000s, but also for my angsty teenage self haha. She does an amazing job capturing all the big feelings that come with being a high schooler, feeling like you don’t fit in, having issues at home, female friendships/trying to make friends, navigating identity, feeling misunderstood, and more.

The LiveJournal parts were especially well done—it really showcases how real and meaningful Internet friendships are, and what things were like in the early days of the internet.

I felt like Ellora’s maybe-crush on Tiff was the one unresolved thing I would’ve liked to see a bit more of. I did love the direction things went with her relationship with her guardian, Brian. Brian was underrated, loved him.

As a Rochesterian, I also appreciated all the great Rochester/western NY references, like the Wegmans-type grocery store, the Bill Gray’s-esque restaurant she works at, the Erie Canal rep, etc.

____________________________________

UPDATE as of June 2025:

I had the opportunity to interview Kristen on my podcast, It's a Lot! You can listen to the conversation here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1IjO...

[Patrick Trotti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished the book in three sittings. Really solid book from a debut novelist that reads like a seasoned author. Definitely will be looking out for more work from her and from the publisher going forward.

[Alison Beninato · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this coming-of-age novel set in 2000/2001. Told through LiveJournal entries, Ellora's voice is so inviting and natural, with a mix of humor, insight, and her daily soundtrack. I felt like I was reading intimate letters from a friend. I can't wait to read what Kristen Felicetti gives us next!

[Mriganka · Rating 5 out of 5]

We picked up the last copy of this book at the store and how lucky did we get. I read this in a day- I loved the optimism and lightness of the young protagonist’s voice, even white writing about deeper themes. Even though some reflections were perhaps too eloquent for a high school girl to write, I found them almost profound. I was deeply rooting for all the characters. I loved this book.

[Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It feels appropriate that I stayed up past my bedtime to finish this.

A fun romp through early 00s internet culture that reminds us that things are not as different now as we think they are.

[Yulia · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a treat it is to come across a book that allows you to channel and reflect on your own memories and experiences in such a sincere way!

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 🌟

[Shawn Q. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know this sounds stupid because this is so obviously a YA book and I didn't realize until after I bought it. I don't usually do YA but god damn this was fun to read. It's all livejournal posts from this girl in high school who's navigating her trauma and complex relationships with friends and parents and sexuality and race in 2000-2001.

I was hesitant at first read because it starts off kinda corny but it really comes through and made me feel like I was in high school all over again. The dialogue and day to day hit so close to home it was low key like reading my own biography (which I believe was the authors purpose) because ALL TEENAGERS ACT LIKE THAT.

So many tender moments between friends that made me CrYYYY. Everything is so exciting and confusing and hopeful but also miserable and angsty at that age and that is completely what I felt reading it.

It's such an easy read. Just give it a go.

[Juliette · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a BEAUTIFUL coming of age story that made me feel nostalgic of the early 2000s when the internet was truly really starting to rise. I loved being in our MCs head and reading her journals. It made me nostalgic for a time I hated living. High School is such a bizarre 4 years for some of us and this really brought me back in a tender and vulnerable way, where everything sucks and everything is dramatic. I loved mainly how this book made me feel and what it reminded me of.

I also really appreciated the story and the characters relationships with each other, specifically the MC and her step dad. It was so refreshing to see a wholesome relationship. I genuinely really loved his character and would be so into the idea of getting a story of his childhood.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved LOG OFF, a coming of age story about sixteen-year-old Ellora Gao. Set during Y2K and the Bush/Gore election in upstate NY (hanging out in the STEDMAN’S parking lot lol), Felicetti writes Ellora and her friends and family tenderly as we see their lives unfold from Ellora’s eyes. I could feel the teen-movie music swelling as Ellora grew in her friendships and learned to be understanding of each person’s hardship. The epistolary LiveJournal format brought back memories of writing on Xanga too.

Also, I think I have to say my genre is novels where the teen characters are obsessed with Fiona Apple – I still think about Megan Milks’s Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body all the time.

[Abi Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars - rounded up
OMG this book was AMAZING, it gave me so many feels in so many parts. It’s such a strong debut and I’m hoping to read more from this author!!!

I don’t remember exactly how it came on my radar, I either read a review (not on Goodreads bc I can’t seem to find any reviews I liked, so I’m thinking probs on Tumblr or Insta) or I saw an ad for it, but from the cover and title alone just *knew* I had to read it (I know, I know don’t judge a book by its cover but still… the cover art is stunning) and then I read the blurb and though “oh yeah this is my jam.”

It made me proper nostalgic for the old internet, even though it’s set in the early 2000s and back then I wasnt even in primary school yet…I *did* briefly flirt with LiveJournal around 2012. I think a few Tumblr mutuals made accounts, but no one posted really and the site already felt pretty dead. I think I posted a few pretentious cringey things but tbh I mostly just used it to read fanfic. There was some RPF of bands on there and a woman who was still actively writing it that I’m embarrassed to say young me enjoyed. But it was really cool to see a book laid out like a LiveJournal account and have that cozy vibes of the old internet before social media was so massive. I think the Livejournal as a diary format worked so well and made the arc so well rounded - I mean, I still have questions but it was nice for it to finish like it did.

Ellie is such a great main character and I was hooked by her voice from the very first page. All the characters feel fully fleshed out, which you don’t always get in a diary-style story or other YA(ish) books. I loved all her friends, but especially Tiff: she just seems sooo cool and nice, I would’ve loved to be her friend back in high school.

Overall, a really good book - feels criminal it’s not getting a lot of attention so I recommend to anyone who likes YA/new adult adjacent stuff or who likes 00s nostalgia.

[JOY PIERCE · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kristen Felicetti’s debut novel, Log Off, transports readers to the very early 2000s, offering a nostalgic and heartfelt journey through the eyes of Ellora, a teenager navigating youth in a Western NY suburb. Through the lens of her LiveJournal account, we learn about her life and struggles written in a voice that is refreshingly authentic, witty, and hilarious.

Felicetti masterfully portrays the era. Anyone who lived through the early 2000s will find themselves nodding along, reminiscing about what it felt like to be in the world during that time. Her writing is engaging and evocative, making it easy to get lost in Ellora’s world, and her ability to blend humor with serious themes make you truly fall in love with her protagonist. Log Off is a story we can all relate to, offering a chance to pause while (hopefully) showing some kindness to our younger selves.

Log Off is a must-read, offering a delightful blend of nostalgia and introspection. This story will be on my mind for a long time. I can't wait to see what Felicetti comes up with next!

[Punkelevenn]

It took a few chapters to get into the world of 16-year-old Ellora Gao’s LiveJournal entries, but once I did the read flew by. Her voice is a combo of cynical and cautiously hopeful, which got me thinking of my lil teenage self. And the last page and a half really tattooed itself on my heart!

This book gave small town vibes with dreams of the big city and imagining a different future for yourself, & radiated with love for the people who make up the present. This isn’t YA, though it centers around a 16 year old. One of its main arguments is the claim that the inner (and outer) lives of teenage girls are just as important as any other stories we read. As a former teenage girl, I have to agree.

[Christopher O · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a much more engaging and enjoyable read than I thought it would be. Mostly because when I opened it and saw that it was written in diary entry form, I thought “I hope the whole book isn’t like this” cuz those tend to be the kind of book I have to work to finish. But this book had very sympathetic characters that developed and matured over the course of the novel, and it really brought me back to that period of time in my life, where online friends became important and it felt easier to share things with them than with people I saw every day. A wonderful novel, indeed!

[Brent Reichenberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a millennial who watched the Twin Towers fall on a TV that was rolled into your classroom, read this book. If you blogged on LiveJournal or Xanga about how terrible your life was as teenager only to yearn for those days as you near 40, read this book. If you grew up queer and lonely, read this book. If you need a balm for these trying times, read this book.

[Danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books of 2024, this brilliant debut is full of nostalgia and is absolutely hilarious. I keep thinking about this book, long after I finished reading. It's a classic, to be sure.

[Jay Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rounded up

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. It was such a nice slice of life. I would read a whole series about Ellora’s coming of age actually

[Ally Feisel]

fun and kept me engaged, but not by any means one of my favorite books i've had to read for a class

[Charlie Stults · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made my lil heart sing!! More Y2K coming of age, I can’t get enough!!

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the streets and screens of 2024 are covered in unearthed Y2K fashion trends, it seems like we haven’t had many new artistic portals into the tender, blogging underbelly of that era, especially in print. Kristen Felicitti’s debut novel Log Off, narrated through a series of LiveJournal posts, felt like that portal.

My full review here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/hardcov...

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a great time with Kristen’s debut novel “Log Off”—it that had me laughing out loud on the subway and reflecting deeply on life’s twists and turns. It scratched various itches within the dusty nooks of my millennial brain and I enjoyed getting to know Ellora and her motley crew through her trenchant LiveJournal entries over the span of a year. I can’t wait to read what Kristen’s got in store next.

[Bill Neumire · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who still remembers getting yelled at in the mid-90s when my father picked up the phone upstairs only to hear the awful internet connection sound of that era, I loved this book! I felt like I went back in time to read an origin story for all my Salvation-Army-flannel-wearing, Nirvana-mosh-pit friends as we grew up in the heyday of alternative rock, the early days of home internet, and the turbulently unaccepting high school halls reflected in Felicetti's pages.

Beyond the alternative-rock-misfit nostalgia this novel wonderfully evokes with its song playlist / LiveJournal structure, Kristen Felicetti's 'Log Off' deftly draws two generations of characters carrying wounds as they try to form new identities in the face of lingering traumas. High school junior, Ellora Gao, writes on LiveJournal in the year 2000, using AIM message and listneing to Fiona Apple, Ani Di Franco, Ben Folds Five, and a sprawling soundtrack that voiced a generation, as she reflects in her journal while listening to Elliot Smith for the first time, "Anger sung quietly cut deeper than anger shouted."

Thankfully, she's not alone. Her group of friends struggles together--anorexia, sexual identity, abandonment, racial identity--in the music of their lives: "'Yeah, it will be hard. That's why you don't want to go it alone...You've got to find friends who get what you're doing, and you get them. You'll help each other out.'"

[Franco Romero · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a wonderful novel. It made me remember being a teenager, how big and how intense everything felt back then. how important my friendships were to me, and how lonely it can feel when you're young and you're trying to figure out how to be in the world— grappling with identity, trauma, as best you can, and trying to learn who you are at the same time. a big part of this novel is the early internet. ellora's livejournal is her second home, maybe her real home, and that made me nostalgic too. remembering how the internet used to feel like this other place, instead of something that we interfaced with every moment of every day. it used to feel like a place we could be free. and yet, reading about ellora and her friends, about a pre-9/11 world didn't make me feel sad for a time that's gone. instead it reminded me of things I think I forgot about. not just from that time in history, but from that time in my life. in all our lives. having dreams, loving your friends, loving art. the world's changed a lot, maybe not for the better, but we still have those things, and isn't that beautiful?

[LTG · Rating 5 out of 5]

I implore you to judge this book by its cover, because what awaits inside this gorgeous, dynamic, layered cover is a narrator and characters equally alive and engaging if not more so than the art inviting you in. I savored the journey of high school junior Ellora X. Gao as she finds her people and her sense of self as told through the portal of her LiveJournal entries. Felicetti has so much more on her mind than just the normal trappings of teenage awkwardness - although those are there as well in all the cringe and hilarity you expect - but she seamlessly weaves issues of mental health, addiction, identity and trauma with such a deft touch that you never feel lectured. Instead, you feel privileged to have such a raw peek into the thorny inner life of a teenage girl at the turn of the century. It's Pen15 meets My So-Called Life, nostalgic yet so contemporary.

[Becky Robison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calling all Millennials: this YA novel is written in LiveJournal entries. Set during the 2000-01 school year, Ellora Gao’s blog entries cover the typical teenage stuff—awkward moments, musical obsessions, budding romances—as well as memories of the mother who abandoned her as a child, her complicated relationship with Brian, her mother’s boyfriend who stuck around to care for her. But most important, of course, are her friendships, and the aspects of life that threaten those friendships: eating disorders, bad boyfriends, going to college, etc. I was in a writing workshop with Kristen years ago, and I’m delighted to finally see this book out in the world.

This review was originally published on my blog.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

LiveJournal girls really are that dramatic, and I would know, because I was one. Log Off gave me all the nostalgic feels of the LJ - 2000/2001 days, teenage angst, not fitting in, friendships, dramatic moments, the sad girl artsy life, and the high of running home to write up a new post. And those posts were honest and hysterical. A touch of *cheer up emo kid*, sarcasm, and trying to understand trauma and depression, not just of your own, but of those around you.

Feels were felt. I cried a couple times, but I’m also a baby.

Huge props to the flow chart attached to the “where are you from” question, we Asian Americans often get because we “look ethnic.” It is an unfortunate universal experience, now that it’s 2025, please knock it TF off.

[Deena Lipomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Six years ago, Ellora's mom left Ellora in the care of her boyfriend Brian and never looked back. Now 16-year-old Ellora still lives with Brian and navigates her family and friend highs and lows through her LiveJournal entries. She reconnects with an old friend, meets others, gets to act in a play, and finally breaks through to Brian for long awaited answers, sharing it all with her international online friends in the early 2000s. The song references reinforce the time period, and Ellora's moods, both good and bad, are authentically portrayed as she seeks to find her place in the world. A cool book that those who were high schoolers in the late 90s and early 00s will particularly enjoy.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a cool concept because the book was written as a series of LiveJournal posts. This was a fun book to read because it really captured a period in time and I enjoyed that it was set in a fictional WNY suburb (with a fictional Wegmans featured), but I struggled with the self-important teenage angst oozing from the story. I wonder about the intended audience- those of us old enough to relate are too old to love the teen drama and teens today wouldn’t necessarily understand the 2000s references and technology. Overall, I liked it and I’m probably the target audience- it did make me go back to look up my LiveJournal.

[Alison Breaden · Rating 5 out of 5]

My love for this book 'Log Off' reminds me of my tenderness for 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower'. The late 90's/early 00's music and history references are a hyper-specific time capsule. I am v pleased to be the target market for such nostalgia!

At times, I was like, "this tone is way too sincere", but then I remembered that I'm supposed to be reading a teenager's secret livejournal. It reads exactly as it should with a damn authentic voice and lovable characters (who are also sometimes jerks.)

+1000 points for a wholesome and enjoyable prom scene. I wish that were my prom.