Ok, I'm a sucker for any story with a family vlogger storyline or arc, so this book was pretty much made for me. It took me a few chapters to get into it, and especially to really understand Hazel and her unique experience, but once I did, I was absolutely in. And then the twists! They had me shook- I had no idea they were coming.

I liked it! It was a well written mystery that had kept me committed. The entire thing is driven by what happens to this social media influencer. Her rise to fame and her demise. There’s even a podcast in this story and it did a great job telling me about her.
This book will make you stop and question everything you thought you knew about social media. Because we already know do t we? Is it safe? No! And still…, we’re so addicted to it??!
I loved disliking most of these characters and I didn’t want to put it down. The author did a great job and gave me a little bit of a Gillian Flynn vibe.
Thanks Quirk Books via NetGalley.

Loved this debut so much! So relevant and timely with the social media backdrop. Mysterious, twisty, and page turning! Not too scary, so even if you don't prefer thrillers I think you could still love this one.

I enjoyed the premise of Such a Bad Influence a lot and thought the world of influencing was created and explained well. Unfortunately, the delivery fell a little flat for me. I wasn't able to connect with characters in the way I wanted to. 3 Stars.

What a ride! I was expecting a little more of a straight up mystery/thriller and this starts out feeling a little more like a straight up literary fiction book before getting into the twisty stuff, but then it really takes you there. I thought it was great.

Timely and entertaining. A recommended purchase for collections where crime and thrillers are popular.

First things first: I think it's important to state that while yes, there is the mystery of where Evie has disappeared to, this isn't strictly a mystery/thriller. It's definitely much deeper than that. I'd say it's more a case study of the effects of social media on our lives; the relationships between sisters; and the relationship between mothers and daughters. It's also a narrative on the relationship we have with ourselves. That said, I was pretty involved in this books, until the last 15 percent or so. It didn't go where I had expected it to, and at times I felt it seemed a little "off". I'd still recommend this to pur customers, but with the warning that no matter which way you approach this book, it may not turn out to be what you expect.

Such a bad influence
by Olivia Muenter
Pub Date: June 4, 2024
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. 4
For fans of Ashley Winstead, Jessica Knoll, and Jo Piazza, an electric debut thriller about what happens when one of the first child stars of the social media age grows up . . . and goes missing.
This truly delivered for me! I highly recommend it.
It's been a long time since I read a mystery with a twist that truly surprised me, but Such a Bad Influence gets better and twistier with every page.
Really made me think about the use of social media and its misuse.
5 stars

This book offers a thought-provoking perspective on the influence of social media in our lives and our obsessions with online figures. While I'm somewhat unsure how I feel about the ending, this book kept me turning the pages. After reading this book, I definitely need to reconsider the use of social media in my life!

I fell so deeply into Olivia Muenter's debut that I looked up in the middle of the night after that fantastic ending to find I'd read it all in one sitting. Her character work is exquisite, and both sisters felt so real even as we learned how little they truly knew about each other. It's a captivating book about a subject that will become more and more ubiquitous as child influencers grow up and reveal the specific horrors and seedy underbelly of growing up online, for the world to see.

Have you ever thought about what life can be like for a child influencer, growing up while strangers watch your every move? What it's like for the family? There are parts of this book where my skin was crawling because I was so uncomfortable. This is a fantastic thriller with a wild twist at the end! We will be purchasing for our library book clubs.

This concept was very interesting, but i wish the execution would have been as well.
growing up in the midst of social media, it’s really interesting to see how things change and how these ‘mommy bloggers’ have become so rampant. i was very intrigued when i read the synopsis, but i just felt like the book didn’t work for me.
it slugged through for majority of the time, and i really believe this book could have used more mixed media elements.
the writing was good, and i was interested for the majority of the book. the twist was interesting as well.
i definitely see this being a book people will really enjoy, i just didn’t love it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and I think it was a really good start to what will hopefully be a robust career for Muenter. The subject matter of social media and the lack of boundaries/laws surrounding children was very interesting and an important issue to bring attention to. I liked that the book looked at multiple aspects of the dangers of over sharing on the internet, from para-social relationships gone awry, to overbearing and attention seeking parents, to management companies taking advantage of influencers.

I was surprised when I saw some of the other lower reviews, but I couldn't help but wonder if those reviews were coming from people in older generations i.e. gen x and older. I don't want to over generalize, but in my experience the generations that did not grow up with the internet and social media tend to really misunderstand the actual danger and the overall nature of living life online. Which makes me think that they were entirely missing the point of the novel. I can see how the story might not translate for someone who is not an avid social media user/ doesn't see the harm in sharing online. One might think that the social media world described is exaggerated, but as someone who uses social media, specifically Reddit and Instagram, some of the influencer descriptions are spot on for actual events that have occurred.

Overall, I found the story to be interesting. It was a bit slow towards the middle, but I really enjoyed the twist at the end. SPOILERS: It looks like some people have different interpretations of what occurs in the last scene, but I read it as somewhat open ended. Is Evie actually the author behind the anonymous newsletter and pinning it on Hazel? Or is Hazel an unreliable narrator and is actually the person behind the newsletter the whole time? I'm excited to read more books from Muenter in the future.

Loved the conceit more than the execution. The resolution felt a little half baked. The epilogue jarred me though! I had sort of assumed that either Evie or Hazel wrote the newsletter but I didn't expect Evie to be the writer and pin it on Hazel.

I wanted this to be better than it was, the premise was very interesting but I feel like the book didn’t live up to it. The jump to the rebrand retreat seemed to be so out of nowhere and didn’t feel like it made a lot of sense. And I don’t entirely understand the ending.

While the concept for this book was interesting and very relatable in this day and age, I just had a hard time getting through this book and wasn't a huge fan of the ending. It felt like this book was dragged out and that it took forever for anything to really happen or work out. I think it would've been much more interesting and captivating had the author spent more time with Evie in the compound and it took on more of a cult like twist to it. As it stands I would not be likely to recommend this book to my patron.

'Such a Bad Influence' is not the type of book I would usually read, but the synopsis on Netgalley was really compelling to me and I wanted to find out how it ended. I was pleasantly surprised by this book, something that is half mystery, half cultural commentary-- a story about a young influencer who goes missing. The main plotline follows her older sister trying to figure out her disappearance, interspersed with commentary from Reddit and a mysterious newsletter reminiscent of Gossip Girl. A couple parts of the book dragged a bit; Hazel's personal life is dry and not really relevant to the plot, and for a section of the book you're not certain if the you're going to get a resolution on the disappearance. I don't know how satisfied I was with the ending.

I received an ARC from Netgalley and was super excited to read this book! It's about influencers and it's a thriller! I loved the idea of it, but I did start skimming through the reddit posts/emails sections so that I could get back to the "real world", but it was super accurate to what people do to influencers on the Internet! I love following Olivia Muenter on Instagram and Substack, so I'm so glad I was able to check out her book!

Wow! It's been a long time since I read a mystery with a twist that truly surprised me, but Such a Bad Influence gets better and twistier with every page.

It's easy to scroll and scroll and engage with influencers online, without giving it much thought. But I've never read a book that contends with the ethics of that world. The observations about family relationships are razor sharp here. Imagine being a child and knowing that you are your family's main source of income, you're afforded no privacy, not valued for your brains at all -- and on top of all that, you happen to be the family's youngest and therefore most vulnerable member. That's Evie, one of the internet's first viral children.

Okay, now imagine being Evie's protective older sister and watching Evie go missing on an Instagram Live. That's where the plot of SABI picks up, with Hazel driving from Arizona to California and beyond to search for her little sister, newly 18 and therefore an adult in the eyes of the law. But Hazel knows her sister wouldn't just pick up and go, so she's determined to save her.

Debut novelist Olivia Muenter is uniquely positioned to tell this story as a writer and influencer in her own right. Though the plot is fiction, readers will recognize the sort of language used in these pages from Instagram, Reddit, true crime podcasts, and our own conversations with friends. I can't wait to see this book take off this summer.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced review copy.

A good thriller that grapples with something that I have a lot of issues with: family vloggers. I really loved Hazel as a main character and was caught off guard by the ending. I didn’t quite understand why it happened, but I thought it was a clever way to end the book. Overall a really strong book!