Bad Influence by Claire Ahn (2025)
Author Claire Ahn has given us something I didn't think possible......a teen influencer we can empathize with and cheer on in her quest for "likes" and followers. (It seems lately such characters only hang out in horror of murder mysteries....)
Korean-American Charlotte is by no means your standard vapid fashionista living out a click bait life on social media. Her family has fallen on hard times making ends meet, and Charlotte's secretly helping them out with money she's earned from her site's first sponsorship, (Her family has no clue about her media life, so she makes up a series of lies about where the money came from.)
Charlotte's ups and down as an influencer take her on quite an emotional ride. Decrying the anti-Asian bigotry of some of her fellow influencers gains her a growing fan base, but she suffers derision and scorn by a taking a sponsorship from a company accused of that exact misdeed. To complicate things even more, she catches the attention of a rising, devil-may-care young movie star at the very same time she realizes she's been in love with that always familiar standby, the combo lifelong friend/boy next door.
But it's none of those usual, typical and predictable YA tropes that attracted to me to this book. The beating heart of "Bad Influence" lies in Charlotte's relationship with her loving, close-knit Korean family. (including, of course, mouth-watering descriptions of Korean cooking at the dinner table.) She and her parents dote upon Jojo, her irrepressible toddler sister, with Charlotte often assuming co-parenting duties of the little girl. But she harbors a long simmering deep resentment of her mother, whom she feels never raised Charlotte with the love and care she now lavishes on Jojo.
While I realize that a lot of readers will, unlike me, find the social media stuff fascinating and compelling., along with the questionable choices Charlotte makes, it's her family dramas and their resolution that kept me glued to the book. (Sorry, but the rising amounts a character's 'likes' doesn't pump out much adrenalin for me....)
A pleasant, satisfying read, that manages enough heart to overcome the self-absorbed superficial world of influencing.
Korean-American Charlotte is by no means your standard vapid fashionista living out a click bait life on social media. Her family has fallen on hard times making ends meet, and Charlotte's secretly helping them out with money she's earned from her site's first sponsorship, (Her family has no clue about her media life, so she makes up a series of lies about where the money came from.)
Charlotte's ups and down as an influencer take her on quite an emotional ride. Decrying the anti-Asian bigotry of some of her fellow influencers gains her a growing fan base, but she suffers derision and scorn by a taking a sponsorship from a company accused of that exact misdeed. To complicate things even more, she catches the attention of a rising, devil-may-care young movie star at the very same time she realizes she's been in love with that always familiar standby, the combo lifelong friend/boy next door.
But it's none of those usual, typical and predictable YA tropes that attracted to me to this book. The beating heart of "Bad Influence" lies in Charlotte's relationship with her loving, close-knit Korean family. (including, of course, mouth-watering descriptions of Korean cooking at the dinner table.) She and her parents dote upon Jojo, her irrepressible toddler sister, with Charlotte often assuming co-parenting duties of the little girl. But she harbors a long simmering deep resentment of her mother, whom she feels never raised Charlotte with the love and care she now lavishes on Jojo.
While I realize that a lot of readers will, unlike me, find the social media stuff fascinating and compelling., along with the questionable choices Charlotte makes, it's her family dramas and their resolution that kept me glued to the book. (Sorry, but the rising amounts a character's 'likes' doesn't pump out much adrenalin for me....)
A pleasant, satisfying read, that manages enough heart to overcome the self-absorbed superficial world of influencing.
3 stars (***).
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