Influence

As someone who was an avid Sara Shepard reader and Pretty Little Liars watcher back in middle school, I definitely had high expectations for this book. I wasn't let down though. Lilia Buckingham brought us into a world that she is a part of as well and really tossed everything into a new light. For a debut novel from someone younger than me, I was blown away at the characterization and plotlines that were created. I definitely recommend reading this book, even for younger readers who are looking to get into the world of young adult fiction. I look forward to hopefully seeing more of Lilia's work in the future!

I received a galley of this book through Netgalley in exchange of an honest review. This book has content warnings OCD and mentions of suicide. This book was quite addicting but I didn't like it. Honestly, I'm baffled that this book was co-written by someone who is actually an influencer. I mean, this is definetly not the worst representation of the influencer world but it's also not good. The book uses the words 'YouTube vlog' and 'livestream' like they are the same thing. They're absolutely not and I was very confused a lot through this book because of that. They also mentioned Musical.ly and TikTok like they are completely seperate things. I mean the influencers coming from the two are very different so I could understand trying to make a difference between the two but it very much read like Musical.ly was still a thing, which it's not. I don't know if that's just because I was reading a galley and by the actual publication it will all change to TikTok but at the same time Musical.ly hasn't been a thing for years so I don't really get it. The comments shown in this book were also super cringey and didn't feel real. I also feel like this show was very shamey towards fangirls, ships and everything internet actually. The conclusion for all the characters was that they need to distance themselves from social media. I mean, of course you can do a great conversation around the dangers of social media and how some people get overly consumed by it but I just feel like this book portrayed social media as the root of all evil. I don't know that message sat a little wrong with me, especially because Lilia is an actual influencer. Besides that I just felt like the characters were very flat and their only developement was stepping back from social media. The mystery was also very bad and the resolution came completely out of nowhere. I love over the top drama but the drama in this book was very unbelievable. I guess that's because most of the time we don't actually get any motivations for the actions that cause the drama. I have one specific instance in mind but I can't mention it because of spoilers. Anyway, I didn't like this book. I was really hoping I would but I didn't at all.