I had a sampler of this book's first chapter that I had clearly picked up forever and a day ago probably at a convention or something. It had got mixed up with my zines but when I sorted them all out - I catalogued them into a spreadsheet and now have over a thousand zines on shelves in my middle hallway - I found it again and read it. I was really intrigued by the first chapter so requested the book at the library. I haven't read anything by Charlotte Seager before but I would again!
The book is told from two points of view. Firstly is Lily. She is a YouTuber. She started off as a make up vlogger and now she's an influencer. She is inundated with free products etc. She lives with her rockstar boyfriend, Brian. She's living the perfect life, right? But Brian can be a total pain and Lily just sometimes wants to step off the rollercoaster. I think Lily is about twenty one so she's slightly out of the YA age group but I think her story will resonate with teenagers anyway. We all know vloggers/influencers like her, so it's easy to understand what it's like behind the scenes. Those people's lives are never as shiny and amazing as they look on social media!
Melissa is sixteen and she's a bit of a loner at school. She has one friend who is sensible and who I'm like, Melissa! Stop treating her badly! Melissa is obsessed with Lily and her channel and has tickets for a meet and greet with her. Melissa gets talking to some girls in her year and ends up hanging out with them. There's a boy they hang out with in the sixth form and Melissa quite fancies him and she ends up starting a blog or YouTube or whatever and pretends that he's her boyfriend. She gets deeper and deeper in and ends up not knowing up from down. It's easy to see how she ends up where she does.
I liked how the book got resolved and I thought Melissa matured a lot and made reparations when she needed to. I liked Lily and like her ending - I hope she was happy! I'm giving this four out of five and recommend it for teens.
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