No filter and other Lies(Book Review) by Crystal Maldonado

 

Crystal Maldonado

Fiction- Young Adult- Social media| Online identities|Popularity| Friendship | Family life| Fat| Puerto Rican|Love|Dogs

✨Suitable for ages 14 and up.

🔺 mention of teenage drinking and smoking and lying about identity.

NB: bisexual Main character

Published 2022

Holiday House

290 pages

48 chapters

Summary: Seventeen year old Kat Sanchez uses photos of a friend to create a fake Instagram account, but when one of her posts goes viral and exposes Kat’s duplicity, her entire world both real and pretend comes crashing down around her. 

     Katherine Isabel Sanchez is a teenage photographer. And she has a tragic 209 followers and even her mum, Sarah Sanchez has 1500 followers. Her annoyingly cool step brother had 3000 followers. It doesn't help that she lives with her grandparents after her parents left her with them when she was younger. She wants to be noticed and wants her work to be noticed, but it feels like no one would notice, or she is black listed. It isn't so wrong to crave some validation isn't it? Unable to get validation from her family and social media, she invented a new self on social media with her friend's picture. A self that can be loved, not a fat black girl like her. But a honey blonde beautiful white girl who used to be a popular beautuber. As a new Kat-fish  self, Kat falls in love with a cute girl with cute pink hair and cute freckles.

  No filter and other lies was a good book, it wasn't boring nor was it bland. It was a nice soft read. It was easy going and kinda fast paced.  The truth is, the cover of this book is really really cute. However, the book was annoying. Because I feel like Kat is so so what's the word? I know MCs cannot be perfect but what Kat did wasn't really nice. And her friends, well they are supportive friends but not good friends! Seriously! Your friend cat fishes and is caught in the act, and the next thing they suggest is going out to eat wings! Seriously! Her grandparents aren't so strict either. She was supposed to be grounded!

But still, I feel like I get her, I understand what it feels like to not feel wanted, and not everyone is strong enough to budge to pressures especially from social media. I do understand. Overall it was a good book. Sweet characters, sweet concepts and dogs!! Cute dogs! Yhup it was good. I like that it wasn't a perfect ending. The ending was realistic enough but not all  that sad.

On a scale of 1-20?

I would give it a 13.