‘Tis the season for the tenuous book. You know: the present you buy for the person in the far reach of your family about whom you know nothing except that they, say, use a lot of emojis on Whatsapp (The Little Book of Emoji Insults), once did yoga (Kilted Yoga: Yoga Laid Bare), or are occasionally a bit funny (any Ladybird Book for Adults).

Those are the real stocking fillers, but there is a higher class of tenuous book, too. These include all celebrity autobiographies and cookbooks, but also: any book about running/ wild-swimming; books about cats by little-known Japanese writers; books about the right way to be a woman – there is one for every age, from toddler to OAP; Attenborough in all forms.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these but it should be noted that the tenuous book is rarely a novel.

And then there is Cordially Invited by Zoe Sugg, better known as Zoella, queen of the vloggers. (Side note: she split herself in two early this year ahead of this, her first non-fiction book, so now has twin sets of social media, running side by side, one for Zoella, “herself”, the other for Zoella, the business, which prompted her to post a heartfelt thank you message to her fans about her “username tidy up”: “Your encouragement & compassion have been hugely appreciated & so helpful!… Hair styled with a chopstick curling wand”).

Cordially Invited was published in October on Super Thursday, the day of the year when all publishers release the books they want to push for the Christmas bestseller lists. And so, this December, thousands upon thousands of Zoella fans (she has 12 million subscribers on YouTube; 10.4 million followers on Instagram) will be receiving her “Seasonal Guide to Hosting Any Occasion And Making a Memory Out of Every Day”.

Sugg is 28 years old and very good at what she does. But the vast majority of her fans are young teenagers, who have neither the means nor the property to host any occasion at all, let alone the need for memories. When I was a teenager, “hosting” was simply a matter of waiting for someone’s parents not to be in. “Add a box of Hooch and Gala’s ‘Freed from Desire’ on a loop and settle in for a magical evening.”

Sugg has compiled various how-tos on flower-arranging, making shakshuka, and compiling a dinner party log-book. Classic teenage things like that

In Sugg’s pompom-strewn, fairylit world, this will very much not do. So she has compiled various how-tos for flower-arranging, making shakshuka, and compiling a dinner party log-book (“a list of who attended, their intolerances, the food you served…”). Classic teenage things like that.

She was inspired to write this guide to being a hostess, by the horrid times she has had staying in hotels as an adult. “I struggled with it,” she writes in the introduction. “The pillows weren’t the same, the bedding wasn’t mine, there was no personalisation and it felt to me like a very sterile environment”.

Sugg’s home, by contrast, is such a cathedral to individuality, she has written a book about how everyone can copy it, down to the tomato leaf candle in the toilet, but using their own bedding because, ugh, imagine sleeping on someone else’s bedding. (Although, page 182: “You know that amazing feeling when you peel back crisp hotel bed sheets? I love my guests to feel that way when staying with me”).

Let’s go in…

Spring

The book begins with spring. “‘Spring has sprung’ is always a lovely way to describe the start of this season”, notes Sugg. Indeed. What else? “As I’m getting older, spring is generally the time of year where I get the urge to clean.” Interesting. There follows a spring to-do list: “Have a good spring clean”. Got it. And what about Easter, any ideas? “Treat yourself to an Easter Egg.”

In a six-page spread on springtime walks, Sugg offers a list of things to take including a coat, an umbrella (“The weather can be a little unpredictable at this time of year, so it’s best to be prepared”) and a ham sandwich. “When ready to assemble your sandwiches, lay your bread out on your work surface and butter each slice.” I could go on, but I don’t want to spoil it. Though I will venture, if you are skilled enough to make your own chutney, as suggested here, you may have already grasped the concept of bread.

‘When ready to assemble your sandwiches, lay your bread out on your work surface and butter each slice’

Is there anything left to do in spring after all that, Zoe?! Yes, you can style your pantry shelves, of course. But I don’t have a…
“I am aware that most people who have a pantry use if for housing all their tins and long-lasting good such as pasta and rice, which I do have on the shelves, but mostly I like to keep things like cake stands, large serving dishes, jugs, teapots, champagne glasses and my everyday plates and bowls on display,” writes Sugg, whose signature writing style is the list you think will never, ever end.

Footnote: last summer Sugg moved into a £1.7 million seven-bedroom mansion in Brighton.

Summer

In Summer, why not host a garden party? “We thought it would be a great idea to combine a housewarming with a summer garden party, thus making the house-warming ‘garden’ themed,” writes Sugg, as if for aliens.

If that’s too heady a concept, start with some Chalkboard Signs. “First decide what you want your signs to say,” says Sugg. “Good suggestions include: ‘welcome to the garden party.’” They can be used to direct people to “various key areas of the garden”. Or, if you don’t live in a mansion: to the garden.

One more thing! “Ensure you have plenty of toilet roll and keep spares close by.”

Bonus tips

There are tips for year-round hosting, too. Sugg suggests leaving chocolates on the (unfamiliar) pillows in the spare room and writing welcome messages on little chalkboards. “It’s also very useful to pop your WiFi code on there so they aren’t having to ask you every half an hour for each of their devices.” Like a hotel, say.

Elsewhere a top party tip includes leaving phone chargers plugged in around the house, especially if you’re having a big do. “So people aren’t coming to ask you where they can find one.” I get the impression someone doesn’t like being asked questions about phones! Perhaps this is what life as a vlogger is really like – just constantly roaming around looking for somewhere to charge your phone. They’re just like us after all.

Autumn

Autumn, but of course, is Sugg’s favourite season of the year, because pumpkin spice/ chill in the air/ comfort food etc. To-do: “Get out your woolly hats and scarves”. “Attend a local fireworks display”.

There are four pages here dedicated to the concept of a “cereal party” (“Start the day off in the right way!”), where Sugg suggests the various ingredients you might include. Here is the Fruit entry in its entirety:

“Fresh Fruit

Slice them up and pile them high:

strawberries, blueberries, mango, bananas, grapes, plums, apples, raspberries, pineapple, pears, oranges, melon, pomegranate seeds.”

Winter

Winter! “Essentially the most excitement-fuelled time of the year!” There is a guide to hosting Christmas – “Food and Drink is VERY important” – and a picture of a sad pug dressed as a gingerbread man. I am running out of steam, which is very on brand for December, if you think about it.

To-do: “Sing carols”. “Eat mince pies”.

And so relentlessly on it goes: a litany of the bleeding obvious and the utterly banal directed at no-one in particular. In the great tradition of Pippa Middleton’s Celebrate, Cordially Invited is useless, which is fine. There are a lot of useless books. But it also costs £20, which means that it is either ripping off young fans and their pocket money or their parents who don’t know what Zoella is and say things like “on the Whatsapps”. The best thing about the book is the recipes – some of them are quite appetising – but a number are culled from her own website, where they can be read for free.

Who is this book is for? If you are young enough not to know about toilet rolls and spring cleaning, you are probably too young to have your own pantry and be hosting dinner parties

The question is, then, who is this book is for? If you are young enough not to know about spare toilet rolls and spring cleaning, you are probably too young to have your own pantry and be hosting dinner parties with table runners. It feels at once remarkably cynical and utterly removed from the reality of most young people’s lives. Or perhaps it is the truest reflection of the Instagram generation, yet – just a big, pretty, hollow collection of paper garlands, sprigged cocktails and pugs in party hats, all rattling around seeking approval.

You could argue that a publishing phenomenon like this props up the rest of the industry, but there are other ways to do that. Milkman by Anna Burns had a 1200% increase in sales after it won the Booker last month. If publishers pushed the good books and novels as hard as glorified merchandise like this on Super Thursday, we might all have a happier Christmas.

Twitter: @alicevjones