Book Review | Such a Bad Influence

Such a Bad Influence
Published by Quirk Books on June 4, 2024
Genres: Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Amateur Sleuth, Fiction / Thrillers / Psychological, Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense
Pages: 336
Format: Audiobook

An electric debut thriller about what happens when one of the first child stars of the social media age grows up . . . and goes missing.

Hazel Davis is drifting: she’s stalled in her career, living in a city she hates, and less successful than her younger sister, @evelyn, a mega-popular lifestyle influencer. Evie came of age online, having gone viral at five years old for a heart-tugging daddy-daughter dance. Ten years older and spotlight-averse, Hazel managed to dodge the family YouTube channel—so although she can barely afford her apartment, at least she made her own way.

Evie is eighteen now, with a multimillion-dollar career and unlimited opportunities, but Hazel is still protective of her little sister and skeptical of the way everyone seems to want a piece of her: Evie’s followers, her YouTuber boyfriend and influencer frenemies, and their opportunistic mother. So when Evie disappears one day—during an unsettling live stream that cuts out midsentence—Hazel is horrified to have her worst instincts proven right.

As theories about Evie’s disappearance tear through the internet, inspiring hashtags, Reddit threads, podcast episodes, and scorn, Hazel throws herself into the darkest parts of her sister’s world to untangle the threads of truth. After all, Hazel knows Evie better than anyone else . . . doesn’t she?

ISBN: 9781683694021

I was so excited for this book when I first heard about it in one of the summer reading guides I went through (I cannot remember which one *laughing emoji*). While the novel was well thought out leading up to the reveal, the last 100 pages or so were a let down.

One of the aspects I absolutely loved about this book was definitely all the non-book items interspersed throughout, the Reddit posts, the podcast episodes, and general social posts. It made the book feel more real, and at times, made me forget that this wasn’t a real influencer.

The pacing of the book was well done as well. Even the memories that Hazel would remember after hearing or seeing something didn’t feel like the detracted from the story. The pacing made it tense without rushing…although I was listening to it (at normal speed), so I couldn’t rush.

Having the book from Hazel’s perspective was such a great idea, while also having the social media posts that do provide a third-person, unbiased view of the family. For the most part, Hazel’s perspective truly reveals the horrible way their mother groomed Evelyn to become who she is and how abusive she was to both her daughters. Yes, we didn’t know as much as we do today about social media and protecting our online presence, but that scene with the room with all the boxes showing Evelyn’s life and how the mother saved EVERYTHING was too much! So creepy and weird and she obviously had to know there was something going wrong after seeing some of those posts from creepy old men.

But there were times that Hazel’s insistence that she knows her sister became annoying. One, because no one can absolutely completely know another person. Two, as we find out Hazel has been out of there lives in New York since college. I mean phones and computers make it easy to keep in touch but still, living on opposite sides of the country both of them with busy schedules made it difficult to also stay connected. Three, Evelyn’s a teenager and teenagers change their personality, their likes and dislikes, like most people change clothes, as they should. This is not an indictment or a negative about teenagers. It’s the simple fact that teenagers are now able to branch away from their parents (developmentally appropriate) and find out what they like separate from the adults in their lives. It’s the time to try on personalities and ideas and things to figure out who you are. Add on top of all this the fact that Evelyn literally has a million people watching her almost at all times and judging her this process of growing up makes it all the more difficult. I do want to make clear that Hazel not completely knowing her sister does not means that she doesn’t love Evelyn. That’s one absolutely clear thing you can come away from the novel is how much Hazel loves her baby sister. As someone with an older sister with a big age gap between us, the dynamic between the two sisters felt so real and obvious and precious.

Okay, so now on to the aspects that I didn’t much like, the ending. I was unprepared for how all this ended. Again I’m listening to the audiobook, the copyright starts up, and I back up a few seconds thinking I missed something. I did not!! What? Was? That? OLIVIA? I was left feeling super unsatisfied with most of it. The mysterious disappearance was so weird, where Hazel finds Evelyn is just strange and disappointing. I expected something more nefarious or exciting for what happened to Evelyn than what we get. Also, while where Hazel found her was interesting in the few years later chapter, that whole situation was brushed aside in a paragraph or two. Since a major theme of the novel is grooming or forcing children (MINORS) to participate in their parents influencer accounts I was expecting Evelyn’s disappearance to connect with that. And it did tangentially but it was just another cult, which again was brushed aside.

Another part that was a mystery throughout was the identity of SABI, the anonymous person who runs the Reddit page Such a Bad Influence. It’s a deep diver expose on the true faces of the influencers in the world. But this person had access to information that only the people who knew the influencers could’ve known. For most of the novel, Evelyn’s best friend (who’s name I cannot remember) is convinced that Evelyn is SABI. The evidence is there, since the friend told Evelyn a fake story about how she adopter her dog and it shows up on SABI. Evelyn’s the only one who has this information…except remember what I said above about the weird room the mother keeps of every single post, interaction, etc. about Evie. Yea, the mother also had recording and video devices in her daughter’s bedroom. Soooo, I’m going along thinking it’s probably the mother, it sounds up her alley.

Upcoming Spoiler: But then in the epilogue chapter where Hazel and Evie are on a morning show discussing Evie’s upcoming book that Hazel wrote, Evie reveals that Hazel is SABI. WTF?!? One this makes no sense considering Hazel’s absolute hatred of everything social media. And yes the SABI account is disparaging and criticizing influencers, it just doesn’t match up with Hazel and how much she cares for her sister to have this whole anonymous Reddit persona. It does make sense for the mother to be SABI since throughout the book one of the other aspects of the novel we find out about is how much the mother is losing her status as an influencer and how much more popular Evie is, jealousy and a lack of sponsorships could easily make the mother create this influencer bashing sub-Reddit. The only reason it makes sense for Evie to reveal this live on national television is a hark back to a somewhat similar situation of someone in Evie’s life. Evie let the school, her mother, everyone believe that a note in her locker came from a teacher who shared a first name with a senior from another student who Evie broke it off with. Evie was okay with the teacher’s life being ruined and having this serious allegation laid against him. So, wrongly indicting Hazel as SABI is another way that social media and being an influencer has seriously messed up Evie’s mental health and development.

Again, I was super intrigued by the book and was so invested as I was reading it but these last two points of how everything ended just felt so odd and weird. And don’t mistake this for someone who wants a nice bow on her novels. I’m okay with open or ambiguous endings, but ones that make sense.