Influence by Sara Shepard and Lilia Buckingham

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Little, Brown Book Group UK in exchange for an honest review.

I was a huge fan of Pretty Little Liars back in the day so I was very excited to receive an ARC of this book. Being a fan of books centered around social media, I was keen to see a PLL-style take on it. I think sadly I have outgrown this kind of writing but that doesn't mean it's a bad book.

Let's start with the positives-unlike some of Shepard's other work, this didn't feel derivative of PLL. The characters had distinct problems (one is struggling with sexuality but it hits different beats to Emily's story) and their roles as influencers took the story in a very different direction which was nice. I liked that we only experienced Scarlet through her live vlogs as it broke up chapters nicely and gave her a more unique edge. I couldn't really tell where the story was going to go, and it's a little bit more chill than PLL as well. You're not stressed by these characters being majorly screwed over at every turn.

Now for the negatives. Putting aside the fact that it reads a bit juvenile (very understandable as that is the age group it's aimed at), I found the characters converged a fair bit. They started off quite distinct but as the book went on, I kept getting a little confused as to who was who and what drama they were involved in. This leads me to the next point which is that the climax was very messy. Things were paced well and then all at once, everything started happening and that's when the characters became less distinct and the story sort of fell apart. In particular, I didn't even remember some of the characters involved in the ending which is a bad sign. I suspect this might have been written as a series and then rushed a bit when it was released as a single book (though it still has series potential).

Overall, Influence is a fun read and it has more positives than negatives. If you're part of its target age group, there is a lot to like here and I do enjoy Shepard's writing. Older audiences won't find much to keep them gripped beyond nostalgia, but I can see this taking off in the same way PLL did.

Overall Rating:

.5