Kate’s Review: “Such a Bad Influence”

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Book: “Such a Bad Influence” by Olivia Muenter

Publishing Info: Quirk Books, June 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: For fans of Ashley Winstead, a razor-sharp debut 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 lifestyle influencer. Evie came of age on the family YouTube channel after a viral video when she was five. Ten years older and spotlight-averse, Hazel managed to dodge the family business—so although she can barely afford her apartment, at least she made her own way.

Evie is eighteen now, with a multimillion-dollar career, 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, and podcast episodes, Hazel throws herself into the darkest parts of her sister’s world to untangle the truth. After all, Hazel knows Evie better than anyone else . . . doesn’t she?

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with and eARC of this novel!

Back at the end of last summer a particularly disturbing crime story dropped, in which Youtube Mommy Blogger Ruby Franke and her business associate Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested for six counts of aggravated child abuse against Franke’s two youngest children. Franke and her family rose to fame through her now defunct 8 Passengers YouTube channel, where she would document and monetize family life and wholesome conservative/Mormon values. So it was a shock to many when she was arrested for starving, beating, maiming, and abusing two of the kids that had once been on the channel and in so many people’s lives through a computer screen. It wasn’t a shock for me, though, having been tuned in to the whole swamp that is child influencers on social media for awhile. So it’s no surprise that “Such a Bad Influence” by Oliva Muenter caught my attention, as it’s a thriller that has that very idea as a hook. I had such high expectations for this book, and was very excited to read it. So it’s not too dramatic to say that after riding a high on it for a good three fourths of the novel, the last fourth knocked me back to Earth in a frustrating way.

Firstly though I’m going to talk about the things that I did like about this book, because for the great majority of it I was very, very pleased with what I was reading. For one, I am a huge sucker for missing person books, and “Such a Bad Influence” has a great hook of a very popular influencer named Evie Davis going radio silent mid livestream, and as her silence continues people start speculating she’s actually missing. This is already a winning aspect for me, and you add in a protagonist in the form of her older sister Hazel, who has shunned the spotlight and has worried over Evie even before this moment in time. Hazel’s motivation is totally believable, and while she’s prickly and difficult in some ways I liked her tenacity and her drive to find the younger sister she feels she has failed in many ways. I also really, really liked the themes of the ethics of children being shown online for profit, usually by their parents, and using them as money makers by exploiting their time, image, and very existence when they can’t REALLY consent. And along with that come the strangers who seek out these accounts of underage children who have disgusting ulterior motives, and how the full access to these accounts can enable predation. This is all through the role of Evie and Hazel’s mother Erin, who once posted a tragic video that went viral and rocketed Evie to fame, and with that came her ambitions to become a momager to her now incredibly popular daughter. And all the shady choices that come with a fortune from business ventures, sponsorships, and clicks constant content churning. I’ve been tapped into this ethical debate for almost two years now, when the podcast “Someplace Under Neith” did a whole series on exploitation of children on social media vis a vis influencer accounts, but it has come more to the forefront in society’s eyes due to the aforementioned Ruby Franke/Jodi Hildebrandt case and a long investigative article by the New York Times (which my husband was texting me about the day it dropped, in full horror, and I was like ‘yep, I know all this, why do you think all my social media accounts where I have images of our kid are private/highly vetted?’). There were also some good points about how true crime exploits people as well, but I won’t go into that as much because eh, that’s pretty well worn territory these days as it seems EVERYONE needs to be pointing that out in any story that involves a true crime community angle. We get it, we’re creeps. But I did like the way this story addressed it as it wasn’t as hamfisted as it could have been. All of this was fantastic, and I was really loving this book and the issues that Muenter was touching upon.

BUT. ONCE AGAIN, a really fun and engaging thriller/mystery was, for me, completely derailed by a wholly unnecessary twist ending.

Okay, look. I’m not so naive to believe that these kinds of rug yanked out from under you twists aren’t popular with the thriller fanbase. I would probably even be willing to concede that for a lot of people the big surprising twist is a good part of the fun of a thriller, to see how creative an author can be and how their misdirection can surprise a reader. But I am getting sick of it. Nay, I’ve BEEN sick of it. It always feels like it negates everything that came before, especially when there was an already in place solid first ending that was upended with a few paragraphs after a time jump of all things, which just felt like a yadda yadda yadda of a significant plot point. And honestly I didn’t really like that one so much either because it wasn’t super fleshed out to begin with, but at least it felt earned and like everything was building up to it. This damn twist had a couple of hints towards it too I suppose, but it still felt like a cheap final ‘gotcha’ that I really didn’t have the patience for this time around. That’s probably not the fault of the book, but man, I’m just so over this kind of device.

I was bummed that “Such a Bad Influence” had a thud of an ending after a solid and enjoyable rise before the fall. If you like shocking final act game changers by all means check it out for yourself. Far be it from me to ruin that kind of fun for those who enjoy it.

Rating 6: What started as a twisted and entertaining thriller eventually ended with a clunk and an unnecessary twist.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Such a Bad Influence” is included in the Goodreads article/list “Readers’ 54 Most Anticipated Summer Mysteries & Thrillers”.