Fabulous Reads: Teen novel promotes self-love, acceptance

Bad Influence, Tamsin Winter, Penguin Random House, ISBN: 9781474979078

AMELIA is a Bright – that’s her surname, but she’s also really bright and has a desire to pursue her talents and get far in life. In her cello playing, she is close to a prodigy, and she’s aiming to become vice-captain of the debate club. The problem is she’s a thirteen-year-old ginger with lots of freckles who is called ‘Maggot’ at school, laughed at and psychologically bullied by her peers on a constant basis. It’s heartbreaking to read her story, even though it’s fiction, because I know that such bullying does occur in schools nowadays – made even worse by social media.

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Bad Influence takes us on Amelia’s journey of bullying and how she puts her heart, soul and everything she has into trying to gain acceptance with the popular crowd even though she has a special friend in Nisha and if she looks hard enough, support from her family, too. In her pursuit of acceptance, she makes a mistake she can’t take back which sends her into intense conflict with everyone around her. In the story, you will discover what led her to that point and how she handles it.

I loved everything about this book. It was funny, raw, real and gripping. Even though teenage fiction isn’t a genre I usually read, I could not put this book down. I was so invested in Amelia’s life which was presented in a well-rounded and detailed way. The author made us feel all her feels, and they were intense at times. Yet, believable. Sometimes, I wanted to take her aside and speak to her about her low self-esteem and how it was causing her to make foolish choices, but what I loved so much was her character arc and how she learned and grew through her struggles. I loved the secondary characters, too, as they weren’t flat and 2D but rather fun and broke stereotypes.

The book highlights the injustice of bullying and also the dangers of modern cyberbullying and how something you send/post online is in the public forever and can never be retracted. It’s a scary thought but very real. It shows how someone can rise above rejection and harshness, even from family members, and believe in themselves. I believe this book is so important for young people to read and written so well that it will keep them gripped the whole way. – Kathy Bosman 5/5 stars

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