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I Didn't Ask For This
If your entire life was online against your will—if everyone knew about your potty training, your first breakup, and even your coming out story—how would you feel?
I Didn’t Ask For This follows the members of Not Your Baby Anymore, a group of kids who share one thing in common: their parents are social media influencers who have shared their entire lives online. The group forms a chosen family as each member struggles with how to break away from a life and fame that they didn’t ask for and do not want.
I Didn’t Ask For This follows the members of Not Your Baby Anymore, a group of kids who share one thing in common: their parents are social media influencers who have shared their entire lives online. The group forms a chosen family as each member struggles with how to break away from a life and fame that they didn’t ask for and do not want.
198 pages, Paperback
First published April 28, 2026
5 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
Jennie Wood
21 books99 followersJennie Wood is a nonbinary author, comic creator, and musician, currently living in Boston. They created the critically acclaimed, award-winning Flutter graphic novel series. Featured in The New York Times, Boston Globe, and on Law & Order: SVU, Flutter was named one of the best LGBTQ graphic novels of 2013 and 2015 by The Advocate. In November 2018, Dark Horse Comics published The Flutter Collection, all three volumes combined into one book. That collection won the Next Generation Indie Book award for best graphic novel of 2019.
Jennie is also the author of the YA novel, A Boy Like Me, which was a Next Generation Indie Book awards finalist, an INDIEFAB Book of the Year finalist, and one of Foreword Reviews’ 10 Best Indie YA novels for 2014. Their work can also be seen in The New York Times best-selling, award-winning FUBAR anthologies, The New York Times best-selling and Eisner award-winning anthology Love is Love, the Harvey-nominated 27, A Comic Anthology, and John Carpenter's Tales for a HalloweeNight.
More: jenniewood.com
Jennie is also the author of the YA novel, A Boy Like Me, which was a Next Generation Indie Book awards finalist, an INDIEFAB Book of the Year finalist, and one of Foreword Reviews’ 10 Best Indie YA novels for 2014. Their work can also be seen in The New York Times best-selling, award-winning FUBAR anthologies, The New York Times best-selling and Eisner award-winning anthology Love is Love, the Harvey-nominated 27, A Comic Anthology, and John Carpenter's Tales for a HalloweeNight.
More: jenniewood.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I voluntarily read and reviewed this advanced copy via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I love a good graphic novel, especially those with pertinent topics like family vloggers. I am a purveyor of Youtube and I watch hours of it every day. It is my substitute telly, which acts as my secondary form of entertainment after reading. I Didn't Ask for This focuses on the children of influencers who exploit them on the internet as their primary source of income. These families run the gamut of themes, from theme park reviewers to extreme sports to daily updates. I don't think these children were all treated equally. I personally would love to travel the world for roller coasters because it sounds like a hoot and a half. The main character Daisy has her asexuality outed by her mother in the form of a blog post, pathetically showing her "allyship" towards her daughter. Daisy and Roller Coaster Baby are not in the same boat. This book gave really bad advice in fighting with fire and showing that digital blackmail is acceptable. Be the bigger person and don't stoop to your trespasser's level. The biggest takeaway from this graphic novel is that children need to be protected from exploitative parents. They don't have voices yet as they don't even understand they're being manipulated in the first place. I appreciated that this book recommended setting up laws about internet safety, even if I didn't approve of the characters' choices throughout the novel. It's a great issue that should be circulated more as the digital age grows each day. Look, I Didn't Ask for This...
I love a good graphic novel, especially those with pertinent topics like family vloggers. I am a purveyor of Youtube and I watch hours of it every day. It is my substitute telly, which acts as my secondary form of entertainment after reading. I Didn't Ask for This focuses on the children of influencers who exploit them on the internet as their primary source of income. These families run the gamut of themes, from theme park reviewers to extreme sports to daily updates. I don't think these children were all treated equally. I personally would love to travel the world for roller coasters because it sounds like a hoot and a half. The main character Daisy has her asexuality outed by her mother in the form of a blog post, pathetically showing her "allyship" towards her daughter. Daisy and Roller Coaster Baby are not in the same boat. This book gave really bad advice in fighting with fire and showing that digital blackmail is acceptable. Be the bigger person and don't stoop to your trespasser's level. The biggest takeaway from this graphic novel is that children need to be protected from exploitative parents. They don't have voices yet as they don't even understand they're being manipulated in the first place. I appreciated that this book recommended setting up laws about internet safety, even if I didn't approve of the characters' choices throughout the novel. It's a great issue that should be circulated more as the digital age grows each day. Look, I Didn't Ask for This...
May 9, 2026
Actual rating: 4,5 stars!
This YA book was so good! So relatable with nowadays life.
The story is about how social media affected the lives of the children of so called "influencers" and/or "content creators". How these teenagers felt their privacy and mental health were disturbed by their own parents just for likes and brand offers.
I loved how real the characters in this book were. I also loved how diverse they were all. Definitely perfect setting and background for YA books.
The illustrations were also eye pleasing. So cheerful and youthful, YOLO kind of vibes.
The ending was realistic yet still meaningful. Told you this book is so realistic I loved it so much.
Thank you to Jennie Wood, Mad Cave Studios, Maverick, and NetGalley for the ARC.
This YA book was so good! So relatable with nowadays life.
The story is about how social media affected the lives of the children of so called "influencers" and/or "content creators". How these teenagers felt their privacy and mental health were disturbed by their own parents just for likes and brand offers.
I loved how real the characters in this book were. I also loved how diverse they were all. Definitely perfect setting and background for YA books.
The illustrations were also eye pleasing. So cheerful and youthful, YOLO kind of vibes.
The ending was realistic yet still meaningful. Told you this book is so realistic I loved it so much.
Thank you to Jennie Wood, Mad Cave Studios, Maverick, and NetGalley for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Not Privacy, but Sequence
“I Didn’t Ask For This” understands that the deepest injury of growing up online is not only exposure, but being named before one has had time to become
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | March 25th, 2026
Adolescence is supposed to come with a little off-camera time. You try on selves in private. You say something foolish to the wrong person and, with luck, only a small handful of classmates remember. You change your mind before your identity hardens into searchable fact. “I Didn’t Ask For This” begins from the nastier arrangement now on offer: first the public self, then the person. Before Daisy Kraft has much chance to decide who she is, she has already been captioned, archived, dressed for the camera, marketed, congratulated, interpreted, and, in one of the book’s nastier turns, outed. Jennie Wood’s graphic novel is plainly about sharenting and influencer-parent culture. More precisely, it is about authorship theft – what happens when a life has been narrated by someone else before the person living it has even learned where to put the commas.
That is not merely the book’s subject. It is the source of its pressure. Daisy, a Chicago teenager whose mother Jillian runs the brand-fed “Sweet Mom Chicago” machine, has grown up as content. Her first day of eleventh grade is not a first day so much as a shoot: approved outfit, tilted camera, bright caption, audience already in place. The algorithm loves a milestone. The humiliation is one thing when it concerns clothes, smiles, and the family brand’s ring-light perkiness. It becomes something harsher when Jillian starts blogging about Daisy’s asexuality before Daisy herself knows what language she wants, where she falls on the spectrum, or how to inhabit an identity still taking shape. The injury is not simply exposure. It is being named too early. Daisy is not only visible before she is ready. She is being interpreted before she is finished.
Wood is smart enough to show quickly that Daisy is not unusual, just newly legible as one member of a much larger class. She is drawn into “Not Your Baby Anymore,” a support group that soon stops being just a refuge and starts becoming a strategy, populated by other children of influencer parents, each caught in a different version of the same intrusion. Casper has become the face of his family’s gluten-free brand, so thoroughly that auditions and parties alike reduce him to “the celiac kid.” Sasha is hauled around France and beyond for amusement-park content, living a life that looks enviable from the outside and airless inside the frame. Byron’s parents monetize danger itself, and one of the book’s strongest sequences has him filming a paragliding disaster while his parents nearly die in front of him. The horror of that scene lies not in spectacle but in role. Byron is not merely dragged along for the ride. He is part of the apparatus. The camera has already assigned him a function.
Yes, the plot borrows a familiar YA arc – loneliness, solidarity, action – but the injury at its center is stranger than the template. These kids are not simply overmanaged. Their childhoods arrive preinterpreted. A sponsored post decides what a day meant before they do. A parenting blog turns uncertainty into lesson content. A comments section builds a tiny public consensus around a person still in draft. That is why the book’s title carries more sting than its slightly sloganish group name. “I Didn’t Ask For This” applies not only to the posted photo or the viral moment but to the whole sequence of having a public meaning thrust upon you before you have had the chance to make private meaning for yourself.
The formal design gets there before the dialogue does. Wood builds the book without formal chapters, relying instead on scene clusters and repeated shifts in medium: blog posts, comment threads, Zoom grids, interview pages, article layouts, livestream fragments, “REC” panels, and public-facing text that keeps flattening life into small clean units. This is not topical garnish. It is the comic’s method. The page keeps dividing people into boxes because the culture already has. Feelings return as thumbnails, captions, reposts, and bright little panes of screen-light. The effect is not especially experimental in the avant-garde sense, but it is formally intelligent. The book understands that these characters do not step in and out of mediation. They live inside it. Even their attempts at intimacy arrive through an interface first.
Josh Cornillon’s line, Michael E. Wiggam’s colors, and Charles Pritchett’s lettering deepen that argument beautifully. The pages are bright, inviting, pop-clean: lavender, peach, mint, sky blue, clear contours, open faces, layouts that read quickly even when the content turns sour. The style is not dodging the book’s pain. It is one of the book’s better ideas. Harm here does not arrive in noir shadows. It arrives in family-blog pastels, sponsor cheer, and the brisk warmth of a caption telling you how blessed everyone is. The art understands that exploitation can come with a ring light and a discount code. More than that, it understands that the visual language of friendliness is itself part of the trap. The comic’s clean readability is never simply cosmetic. It mirrors the seductive legibility of the world it is critiquing.
Once “Not Your Baby Anymore” starts acting like a political formation rather than a support group alone, the story gains a second motor. The kids research French privacy law, recruit Shane’s mother Kim Lee for legal guidance, draft “The Protecting Minors from Social Media Exploitation Act,” and begin the dull grown-up work of persuading adults that this is not just teenage oversensitivity with Wi-Fi. On paper, legislative material can feel dutiful. Here it does something genuinely useful: it drags private injury into policy and asks what kind of culture requires a bill in order to tell parents not to turn their children into product lines. The answer, obviously, is ours.
Just as importantly, the book knows a bill can draw a boundary and still fail to repair a family. The Illinois version of the act fails. A later federal push passes the House and dies in the Senate. Parents reform unevenly, belatedly, or for reasons that remain tactically convenient rather than morally profound. Jillian gets the comment section turning on her, which is emotionally satisfying and ethically tiny. Wood is too smart to confuse backlash with justice. She is also too smart to stage a simple revenge fantasy. After discovering compromising footage from Jillian’s youth, Daisy considers retaliating in kind, then stops. Instead she writes an essay about what her mother’s public narration has cost her and pairs it with a song, “Better Than You.” That refusal matters, because revenge would only mimic the same ugly economy of exposure. Song changes the terms. Not because art is magically pure, but because it lets Daisy choose the frame.
Here the book makes its finest move. It shifts the argument from privacy to sequence. The deepest injury of sharenting is not just that the child is seen too much, though that is bad enough. It is that the child’s story gets arranged in public before the child has had time to live it from the inside. Daisy does not need merely fewer posts. She needs room for disorder: confusion first, vocabulary later, audience last. The ending understands this with satisfying precision. Daisy’s transformation into “Betty Wail,” the stage identity under which she plays her first gig, is not just a neat YA flourish. It is the book’s answer to its own premise. She cannot erase “Sweet Mom Chicago.” She cannot unpublish her childhood. She cannot recover the long luxury of not yet being legible. What she can do is author a self of her own making.
The language moves quickly, lands often, and now and then explains one beat too early. Because this is a graphic novel, the prose consists largely of dialogue, captions, posts, comments, and the chopped syntax of captions, DMs, and miniature position papers. Wood has a good ear for contemporary teenage talk without burying it in timestamped slang. The banter is nimble. The flirtation is awkward in the right proportions. Daisy and Shane in particular are given enough friction and warmth to feel lived rather than diagrammed. The group scenes crackle in the way group chats and late-night confidences do: too much feeling, too much talk, just enough comedy. The book knows that young people do not speak only in wounds. They also deflect, posture, tease, and try to get through the afternoon.
Still, the language is more effective than distinctive. Wood wants the book understood, and often wisely so. These characters are naming a form of harm that many adults still wave away as oversharing, bad vibes, or the unavoidable weather of modern life. Clarity is part of the project. But clarity has a cost. In the bill-drafting scenes and some of the advocacy exchanges, characters occasionally speak in complete position statements before the scene has had time to sting. The comic can subtitle itself a little too promptly. It is strongest when the form, the joke, or the social awkwardness carries the point for a beat before the dialogue nails it down. One of the book’s central virtues is that it understands how over-captioned lives become over-explained lives. A small irony is that the comic sometimes repeats the habit it is diagnosing.
The same neatness that sharpens the thesis occasionally flattens the supporting cast. Daisy is vivid and coherently built. Byron’s plotline lands especially hard because the book understands the obscene logic of forcing a child to record trauma as labor. Casper, Sasha, and the others all matter, but some function a bit like well-drawn case files, each carrying a distinct version of the argument. That makes the comic broad and teachable. It also keeps it slightly tidier than the material itself. Wood is better at pattern than at contradiction, better at showing how the system works than at letting every character get unruly enough to resist the system’s neatness on the page. The result is a book with a high floor and a visible ceiling: intelligently built, emotionally persuasive, occasionally a little too eager to make sure the reader gets the point.
Even so, it would be a mistake to underrate what the book does because it does it so cleanly. Contemporary issue fiction often receives praise for seriousness without receiving enough attention for craft, or else it gets penalized for clarity as though opacity were the only proof of artistic ambition. “I Didn’t Ask For This” deserves a more precise reading than either reflex allows. Its central achievement is formal as much as thematic. It does not merely tell us that these teenagers are trapped inside other people’s frames. It repeatedly frames them that way, then lets them feel the pressure of those frames. It understands that the same digital ecology that injures them can also become the place where they find one another, form a counterpublic, and begin to narrate themselves back into being. That is a real formal accomplishment.
At the same time, the review one most often wants to write about a book like this – one praising its timeliness, commending its heart, nodding solemnly at its relevance – would undersell it. The novel’s interest is not that it addresses social media. Plenty of books do that and most of them feel as though they were assembled beside a whiteboard. Wood’s book is more exact. It is about children inheriting public selves before they have private ones sturdy enough to push back. It is about the loneliness of discovering that strangers think they know you because your mother has been publishing your rough drafts since infancy. It is about the humiliation of finding that the self you are trying to grow into has already been keyworded, branded, and monetized. That is a sharper and more lasting subject than “the internet is bad.”
For me it lands at 86/100, or 4 stars, which feels exactly right for a book this intelligent, lucid, and slightly bounded by its own admirable wish to be understood. It is not higher because the dialogue sometimes reaches the conclusion before the scene fully arrives, because the advocacy arc can stiffen into demonstration, and because the ensemble is stronger as a chorus than as a set of truly unruly individuals. It is not lower because the central conception is so sound, the formal design so apt, and the ending so quietly exact. The comic knows where its real finish line is. Not in the legislature, though the legislative material matters. Not in Jillian’s public humiliation, though heaven knows she has earned a little comment squall. Not even in family reconciliation, which the book sensibly refuses to overpromise.
No topical scaffolding is required here; the book is already describing a culture in which childhood comes preformatted for circulation. This is not merely a story about phones, followers, or one especially noxious mother blog. It is about children inheriting searchable selves, public narratives hardening around them before they can object, adults mistaking documentation for care and visibility for intimacy. The comic is sharpest when it insists on the difference between being seen and being known. Online culture collapses that distinction all day long. “I Didn’t Ask For This” does not.
The ending lands because it does not pretend one hearing, one bill, or one apology could cleanly undo years of exposure. The Senate kills the act. Some parents adjust; some pivot; some simply discover a softer vocabulary for the same entitlement. Casper’s parents remove his image from the brand, an overdue concession that changes something and not nearly enough. Byron’s family remains damaged, if altered. Daisy’s mother does not turn into a different species of parent overnight. The world does not wake up because a few teenagers finally get a microphone. What changes is smaller and better. Daisy chooses a name. Daisy gets a gig. Daisy walks onstage as “Betty Wail” and sings, with exactly the right amount of bluntness, “I’m not your baby anymore.” By then the line no longer sounds like a slogan. It sounds like sequence recovered at last.
That is what the book finally understands. The opposite of exploitation is not invisibility. It is authorship. Not hiding, not deleting every trace, not pretending the archive never happened, but deciding what appears, when it appears, under what name, and in whose words. Daisy does not win back an untouched childhood. No one here does. What she wins is leaner, stranger, and more believable: the right to step into the same bright light that once flattened her and make it answer to her voice.
“I Didn’t Ask For This” understands that the deepest injury of growing up online is not only exposure, but being named before one has had time to become
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | March 25th, 2026
Adolescence is supposed to come with a little off-camera time. You try on selves in private. You say something foolish to the wrong person and, with luck, only a small handful of classmates remember. You change your mind before your identity hardens into searchable fact. “I Didn’t Ask For This” begins from the nastier arrangement now on offer: first the public self, then the person. Before Daisy Kraft has much chance to decide who she is, she has already been captioned, archived, dressed for the camera, marketed, congratulated, interpreted, and, in one of the book’s nastier turns, outed. Jennie Wood’s graphic novel is plainly about sharenting and influencer-parent culture. More precisely, it is about authorship theft – what happens when a life has been narrated by someone else before the person living it has even learned where to put the commas.
That is not merely the book’s subject. It is the source of its pressure. Daisy, a Chicago teenager whose mother Jillian runs the brand-fed “Sweet Mom Chicago” machine, has grown up as content. Her first day of eleventh grade is not a first day so much as a shoot: approved outfit, tilted camera, bright caption, audience already in place. The algorithm loves a milestone. The humiliation is one thing when it concerns clothes, smiles, and the family brand’s ring-light perkiness. It becomes something harsher when Jillian starts blogging about Daisy’s asexuality before Daisy herself knows what language she wants, where she falls on the spectrum, or how to inhabit an identity still taking shape. The injury is not simply exposure. It is being named too early. Daisy is not only visible before she is ready. She is being interpreted before she is finished.
Wood is smart enough to show quickly that Daisy is not unusual, just newly legible as one member of a much larger class. She is drawn into “Not Your Baby Anymore,” a support group that soon stops being just a refuge and starts becoming a strategy, populated by other children of influencer parents, each caught in a different version of the same intrusion. Casper has become the face of his family’s gluten-free brand, so thoroughly that auditions and parties alike reduce him to “the celiac kid.” Sasha is hauled around France and beyond for amusement-park content, living a life that looks enviable from the outside and airless inside the frame. Byron’s parents monetize danger itself, and one of the book’s strongest sequences has him filming a paragliding disaster while his parents nearly die in front of him. The horror of that scene lies not in spectacle but in role. Byron is not merely dragged along for the ride. He is part of the apparatus. The camera has already assigned him a function.
Yes, the plot borrows a familiar YA arc – loneliness, solidarity, action – but the injury at its center is stranger than the template. These kids are not simply overmanaged. Their childhoods arrive preinterpreted. A sponsored post decides what a day meant before they do. A parenting blog turns uncertainty into lesson content. A comments section builds a tiny public consensus around a person still in draft. That is why the book’s title carries more sting than its slightly sloganish group name. “I Didn’t Ask For This” applies not only to the posted photo or the viral moment but to the whole sequence of having a public meaning thrust upon you before you have had the chance to make private meaning for yourself.
The formal design gets there before the dialogue does. Wood builds the book without formal chapters, relying instead on scene clusters and repeated shifts in medium: blog posts, comment threads, Zoom grids, interview pages, article layouts, livestream fragments, “REC” panels, and public-facing text that keeps flattening life into small clean units. This is not topical garnish. It is the comic’s method. The page keeps dividing people into boxes because the culture already has. Feelings return as thumbnails, captions, reposts, and bright little panes of screen-light. The effect is not especially experimental in the avant-garde sense, but it is formally intelligent. The book understands that these characters do not step in and out of mediation. They live inside it. Even their attempts at intimacy arrive through an interface first.
Josh Cornillon’s line, Michael E. Wiggam’s colors, and Charles Pritchett’s lettering deepen that argument beautifully. The pages are bright, inviting, pop-clean: lavender, peach, mint, sky blue, clear contours, open faces, layouts that read quickly even when the content turns sour. The style is not dodging the book’s pain. It is one of the book’s better ideas. Harm here does not arrive in noir shadows. It arrives in family-blog pastels, sponsor cheer, and the brisk warmth of a caption telling you how blessed everyone is. The art understands that exploitation can come with a ring light and a discount code. More than that, it understands that the visual language of friendliness is itself part of the trap. The comic’s clean readability is never simply cosmetic. It mirrors the seductive legibility of the world it is critiquing.
Once “Not Your Baby Anymore” starts acting like a political formation rather than a support group alone, the story gains a second motor. The kids research French privacy law, recruit Shane’s mother Kim Lee for legal guidance, draft “The Protecting Minors from Social Media Exploitation Act,” and begin the dull grown-up work of persuading adults that this is not just teenage oversensitivity with Wi-Fi. On paper, legislative material can feel dutiful. Here it does something genuinely useful: it drags private injury into policy and asks what kind of culture requires a bill in order to tell parents not to turn their children into product lines. The answer, obviously, is ours.
Just as importantly, the book knows a bill can draw a boundary and still fail to repair a family. The Illinois version of the act fails. A later federal push passes the House and dies in the Senate. Parents reform unevenly, belatedly, or for reasons that remain tactically convenient rather than morally profound. Jillian gets the comment section turning on her, which is emotionally satisfying and ethically tiny. Wood is too smart to confuse backlash with justice. She is also too smart to stage a simple revenge fantasy. After discovering compromising footage from Jillian’s youth, Daisy considers retaliating in kind, then stops. Instead she writes an essay about what her mother’s public narration has cost her and pairs it with a song, “Better Than You.” That refusal matters, because revenge would only mimic the same ugly economy of exposure. Song changes the terms. Not because art is magically pure, but because it lets Daisy choose the frame.
Here the book makes its finest move. It shifts the argument from privacy to sequence. The deepest injury of sharenting is not just that the child is seen too much, though that is bad enough. It is that the child’s story gets arranged in public before the child has had time to live it from the inside. Daisy does not need merely fewer posts. She needs room for disorder: confusion first, vocabulary later, audience last. The ending understands this with satisfying precision. Daisy’s transformation into “Betty Wail,” the stage identity under which she plays her first gig, is not just a neat YA flourish. It is the book’s answer to its own premise. She cannot erase “Sweet Mom Chicago.” She cannot unpublish her childhood. She cannot recover the long luxury of not yet being legible. What she can do is author a self of her own making.
The language moves quickly, lands often, and now and then explains one beat too early. Because this is a graphic novel, the prose consists largely of dialogue, captions, posts, comments, and the chopped syntax of captions, DMs, and miniature position papers. Wood has a good ear for contemporary teenage talk without burying it in timestamped slang. The banter is nimble. The flirtation is awkward in the right proportions. Daisy and Shane in particular are given enough friction and warmth to feel lived rather than diagrammed. The group scenes crackle in the way group chats and late-night confidences do: too much feeling, too much talk, just enough comedy. The book knows that young people do not speak only in wounds. They also deflect, posture, tease, and try to get through the afternoon.
Still, the language is more effective than distinctive. Wood wants the book understood, and often wisely so. These characters are naming a form of harm that many adults still wave away as oversharing, bad vibes, or the unavoidable weather of modern life. Clarity is part of the project. But clarity has a cost. In the bill-drafting scenes and some of the advocacy exchanges, characters occasionally speak in complete position statements before the scene has had time to sting. The comic can subtitle itself a little too promptly. It is strongest when the form, the joke, or the social awkwardness carries the point for a beat before the dialogue nails it down. One of the book’s central virtues is that it understands how over-captioned lives become over-explained lives. A small irony is that the comic sometimes repeats the habit it is diagnosing.
The same neatness that sharpens the thesis occasionally flattens the supporting cast. Daisy is vivid and coherently built. Byron’s plotline lands especially hard because the book understands the obscene logic of forcing a child to record trauma as labor. Casper, Sasha, and the others all matter, but some function a bit like well-drawn case files, each carrying a distinct version of the argument. That makes the comic broad and teachable. It also keeps it slightly tidier than the material itself. Wood is better at pattern than at contradiction, better at showing how the system works than at letting every character get unruly enough to resist the system’s neatness on the page. The result is a book with a high floor and a visible ceiling: intelligently built, emotionally persuasive, occasionally a little too eager to make sure the reader gets the point.
Even so, it would be a mistake to underrate what the book does because it does it so cleanly. Contemporary issue fiction often receives praise for seriousness without receiving enough attention for craft, or else it gets penalized for clarity as though opacity were the only proof of artistic ambition. “I Didn’t Ask For This” deserves a more precise reading than either reflex allows. Its central achievement is formal as much as thematic. It does not merely tell us that these teenagers are trapped inside other people’s frames. It repeatedly frames them that way, then lets them feel the pressure of those frames. It understands that the same digital ecology that injures them can also become the place where they find one another, form a counterpublic, and begin to narrate themselves back into being. That is a real formal accomplishment.
At the same time, the review one most often wants to write about a book like this – one praising its timeliness, commending its heart, nodding solemnly at its relevance – would undersell it. The novel’s interest is not that it addresses social media. Plenty of books do that and most of them feel as though they were assembled beside a whiteboard. Wood’s book is more exact. It is about children inheriting public selves before they have private ones sturdy enough to push back. It is about the loneliness of discovering that strangers think they know you because your mother has been publishing your rough drafts since infancy. It is about the humiliation of finding that the self you are trying to grow into has already been keyworded, branded, and monetized. That is a sharper and more lasting subject than “the internet is bad.”
For me it lands at 86/100, or 4 stars, which feels exactly right for a book this intelligent, lucid, and slightly bounded by its own admirable wish to be understood. It is not higher because the dialogue sometimes reaches the conclusion before the scene fully arrives, because the advocacy arc can stiffen into demonstration, and because the ensemble is stronger as a chorus than as a set of truly unruly individuals. It is not lower because the central conception is so sound, the formal design so apt, and the ending so quietly exact. The comic knows where its real finish line is. Not in the legislature, though the legislative material matters. Not in Jillian’s public humiliation, though heaven knows she has earned a little comment squall. Not even in family reconciliation, which the book sensibly refuses to overpromise.
No topical scaffolding is required here; the book is already describing a culture in which childhood comes preformatted for circulation. This is not merely a story about phones, followers, or one especially noxious mother blog. It is about children inheriting searchable selves, public narratives hardening around them before they can object, adults mistaking documentation for care and visibility for intimacy. The comic is sharpest when it insists on the difference between being seen and being known. Online culture collapses that distinction all day long. “I Didn’t Ask For This” does not.
The ending lands because it does not pretend one hearing, one bill, or one apology could cleanly undo years of exposure. The Senate kills the act. Some parents adjust; some pivot; some simply discover a softer vocabulary for the same entitlement. Casper’s parents remove his image from the brand, an overdue concession that changes something and not nearly enough. Byron’s family remains damaged, if altered. Daisy’s mother does not turn into a different species of parent overnight. The world does not wake up because a few teenagers finally get a microphone. What changes is smaller and better. Daisy chooses a name. Daisy gets a gig. Daisy walks onstage as “Betty Wail” and sings, with exactly the right amount of bluntness, “I’m not your baby anymore.” By then the line no longer sounds like a slogan. It sounds like sequence recovered at last.
That is what the book finally understands. The opposite of exploitation is not invisibility. It is authorship. Not hiding, not deleting every trace, not pretending the archive never happened, but deciding what appears, when it appears, under what name, and in whose words. Daisy does not win back an untouched childhood. No one here does. What she wins is leaner, stranger, and more believable: the right to step into the same bright light that once flattened her and make it answer to her voice.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
In a Nutshell: A YA graphic novel dealing with an important topic – the online exploitation of children by influencer parents. The intent is fabulous but the execution needs finetuning. Uni-dimensional characters. Too cluttered with subplots, too aggressive about certain themes, too deliberate about inclusive representation. Decent illustrations. This has all the negatives of typical YA writing, but I guess I can’t hold this against the book as it is meant to be YA. I still appreciate the purpose behind the storyline but I wish it had stuck to the central theme instead of spreading itself thin. Might work better for YA readers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Plot Preview:
Whenever I see a blurb with the word “influencer” in it, I reject the book outright. But this blurb created the contrary effect, simply because of the core topic. There are so many parents these days who document their children’s lives through social media. I always wonder how these children will feel about their utter lack of privacy when they are older and might want to have more agency over their lives. So this topic felt very interesting. But I didn’t realise that this book would be so YA in tone! 😬 Most of my friends know how YA books and I aren’t a match made in heaven, so take this review with a pinch of salt.
Bookish Yays:
🤳🏻 The intent of trying to give a voice to children who are online without their consent. Excellent concept for a book. I didn’t know this is called “sharenting” – a clever portmanteau.
🤳🏻 The way the teens affected by their influencer parents’ decisions come together to help each other. I’d rather see such teamwork in YA novels than youngsters fighting their battles alone.
🤳🏻 Shane’s family. The only positive family rep in the entire book.
🤳🏻 The backmatter containing a writeup on the importance of voting and how youngsters can register their names on the voting list. Not too relevant to the plot but important information nonetheless.
Bookish Okays:
📱 The content is fairly informative about several aspects related to laws and consent, but instead of sharing these details organically, the book often indulges in fact-dumping, with the character spouting random trivia in their dialogues just to educate readers. Not a very convincing writing style.
📱 Too many characters, i.e. too many kids and parent influencers to keep track of. The variety of people and situations helps add multiple dimensions to the main argument, but also reduces the depth of each individual’s arc.
📱 A certain scene in the book was worrisome and I was afraid it would teach kids the wrong lesson. Thankfully it took the right turn at the last minute, but a part of me still thinks it is a risky inclusion.
📱 The art didn’t impress me that much. It was good in some scenes but the sketching of some characters didn’t appeal much to me. The expressions also felt off at times. But art is subjective, so perhaps this style might work for other readers.
Bookish Nays:
📵 Did you note the word “voting” above in the Yays and wondered what it had to do with the core topic? Well, there’s no great link between how the book started and how it ended. I expected the children’s problems to be resolved through open discussion with their parents or perhaps even through some legal or official intervention. I certainly didn’t expect the storyline to go the political way and talk about introducing a bill to offer such children more rights. Is this a good idea? Maybe. But is this political direction indicated in the blurb? No. Do I like the plot exploring only political solutions instead of tackling the problem at the familial level also? Not at all! Both are important angles and both should have been addressed equally.
📵 The social commentary is too heavyhanded. Right from the start, this book hammers us on the head with its agendas. A subtle approach would have felt more realistic. But this just feels over the top.
📵 Further to the above, there’s so much of token rep! It’s not that I don’t appreciate content related to gender/sexual identity, but it should feel like a natural inclusion. Shoving in almost every colour from the rainbow and beyond just makes it seem unrealistic. Further, the Indian rep just annoyed me. What was the point of that character except to be the token Indian with his “Namaste” greeting at the start of the Zoom meetings? And please, an Indian-origin youngster in the USA in 2026 having the name ‘Narada’? Impossible! It’s not a common name even in India. Just because it’s from Indian mythology doesn’t mean it is a common/usable first name.
📵 While the child-of-influencer topic is the main issue, there are several other subplots in the teens’ lives, such as homeschooling constraints, budding relationships, musical aspirations, psychological trauma over witnessing something horrifying, and a lot more. This is even beyond the above-mentioned LGBTQIA+ related topics. Not all of these needed to be included. The approach makes the book feel cluttered.
📵 The unidimensional adult characters – a perennial problem in poorly-written YA books. All the adults fall in two distinct categories: heinous and selfish or kind-hearted and charitable; no in-betweens. The depiction of parents needed to be much better. Not all influencer parents are wicked IRL. Some genuinely believe they are doing right by their child. At least one of the included parents could have been shown as sympathetic to their child’s struggles, or willing to listen to their complaints.
Overall, I expected far better from this graphic novel. There was a lot of potential in this concept to be a thought-provoking book, but by sticking to such an aggressive YA tone, it will not win over many adult readers, which is sad because this topic needs to be acknowledged by both teens and adults.
Basically, it didn’t work for me as I thought it would. But the second half is somewhat better and the topic is quite important. So you might still like to give it a go just for the intent and the information. Might click more with YA readers.
2.5 stars, rounding up for the intent and for the fact that it aimed at a younger readership.
My thanks to Mad Cave Studios and Maverick for providing the DRC of “I Didn't Ask For This” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I follow the Goodreads rating policy:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Lifelong favourite!
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - I loved the book.
⭐⭐⭐ - I liked the book.
⭐⭐ - I found the book average.
⭐ - I hated the book.
The decimals indicate the degree of the in-between feelings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || Facebook ||
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Plot Preview:
Daisy is tired of her mom sharing every single detail of her life on her mom blog, even when Daisy refuses. So when she gets invited to an online group called “Not Your Baby Anymore”, she hesitates only a little before joining. This group comprises some teenagers from across the USA whose parents are social media influencers sharing their personal life online and having a substantial following. As each of these teenagers struggles to take back some control over their own lives, a new idea begins to form.
Whenever I see a blurb with the word “influencer” in it, I reject the book outright. But this blurb created the contrary effect, simply because of the core topic. There are so many parents these days who document their children’s lives through social media. I always wonder how these children will feel about their utter lack of privacy when they are older and might want to have more agency over their lives. So this topic felt very interesting. But I didn’t realise that this book would be so YA in tone! 😬 Most of my friends know how YA books and I aren’t a match made in heaven, so take this review with a pinch of salt.
Bookish Yays:
🤳🏻 The intent of trying to give a voice to children who are online without their consent. Excellent concept for a book. I didn’t know this is called “sharenting” – a clever portmanteau.
🤳🏻 The way the teens affected by their influencer parents’ decisions come together to help each other. I’d rather see such teamwork in YA novels than youngsters fighting their battles alone.
🤳🏻 Shane’s family. The only positive family rep in the entire book.
🤳🏻 The backmatter containing a writeup on the importance of voting and how youngsters can register their names on the voting list. Not too relevant to the plot but important information nonetheless.
Bookish Okays:
📱 The content is fairly informative about several aspects related to laws and consent, but instead of sharing these details organically, the book often indulges in fact-dumping, with the character spouting random trivia in their dialogues just to educate readers. Not a very convincing writing style.
📱 Too many characters, i.e. too many kids and parent influencers to keep track of. The variety of people and situations helps add multiple dimensions to the main argument, but also reduces the depth of each individual’s arc.
📱 A certain scene in the book was worrisome and I was afraid it would teach kids the wrong lesson. Thankfully it took the right turn at the last minute, but a part of me still thinks it is a risky inclusion.
📱 The art didn’t impress me that much. It was good in some scenes but the sketching of some characters didn’t appeal much to me. The expressions also felt off at times. But art is subjective, so perhaps this style might work for other readers.
Bookish Nays:
📵 Did you note the word “voting” above in the Yays and wondered what it had to do with the core topic? Well, there’s no great link between how the book started and how it ended. I expected the children’s problems to be resolved through open discussion with their parents or perhaps even through some legal or official intervention. I certainly didn’t expect the storyline to go the political way and talk about introducing a bill to offer such children more rights. Is this a good idea? Maybe. But is this political direction indicated in the blurb? No. Do I like the plot exploring only political solutions instead of tackling the problem at the familial level also? Not at all! Both are important angles and both should have been addressed equally.
📵 The social commentary is too heavyhanded. Right from the start, this book hammers us on the head with its agendas. A subtle approach would have felt more realistic. But this just feels over the top.
📵 Further to the above, there’s so much of token rep! It’s not that I don’t appreciate content related to gender/sexual identity, but it should feel like a natural inclusion. Shoving in almost every colour from the rainbow and beyond just makes it seem unrealistic. Further, the Indian rep just annoyed me. What was the point of that character except to be the token Indian with his “Namaste” greeting at the start of the Zoom meetings? And please, an Indian-origin youngster in the USA in 2026 having the name ‘Narada’? Impossible! It’s not a common name even in India. Just because it’s from Indian mythology doesn’t mean it is a common/usable first name.
📵 While the child-of-influencer topic is the main issue, there are several other subplots in the teens’ lives, such as homeschooling constraints, budding relationships, musical aspirations, psychological trauma over witnessing something horrifying, and a lot more. This is even beyond the above-mentioned LGBTQIA+ related topics. Not all of these needed to be included. The approach makes the book feel cluttered.
📵 The unidimensional adult characters – a perennial problem in poorly-written YA books. All the adults fall in two distinct categories: heinous and selfish or kind-hearted and charitable; no in-betweens. The depiction of parents needed to be much better. Not all influencer parents are wicked IRL. Some genuinely believe they are doing right by their child. At least one of the included parents could have been shown as sympathetic to their child’s struggles, or willing to listen to their complaints.
Overall, I expected far better from this graphic novel. There was a lot of potential in this concept to be a thought-provoking book, but by sticking to such an aggressive YA tone, it will not win over many adult readers, which is sad because this topic needs to be acknowledged by both teens and adults.
Basically, it didn’t work for me as I thought it would. But the second half is somewhat better and the topic is quite important. So you might still like to give it a go just for the intent and the information. Might click more with YA readers.
2.5 stars, rounding up for the intent and for the fact that it aimed at a younger readership.
My thanks to Mad Cave Studios and Maverick for providing the DRC of “I Didn't Ask For This” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I follow the Goodreads rating policy:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Lifelong favourite!
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - I loved the book.
⭐⭐⭐ - I liked the book.
⭐⭐ - I found the book average.
⭐ - I hated the book.
The decimals indicate the degree of the in-between feelings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || Facebook ||
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I requested "I Didn't Ask for This" as soon as I saw the words "children of influencers support group".
Other than that, I went into this book completely blind, so I was surprised that it catered to such a young audience through its art style and writing, but it made perfect sense, considering the themes it touches on and that the story is being told through the eyes of teens.
I deeply appreciated that these characters are not only diverse to check a box, but their religious, racial and queer identities are taken into account when it comes to the story, and in the details, such as their clothes and accessories. I loved reading a book that was so unashamedly queer, with the main character being ace and her best friend being non-binary, and multiple other characters also being part of the LGBTQ community.
It's often difficult for adults to write realistic teen characters, but this book not only did that, but it was obvious that the authors put in huge amounts of effort into researching not only the realities, consequences and dangers of having your childhood and teenage years publicised and monetised by others, but the different character's experiences, depending on their parent's online niche and parenting style.
One of the most interesting and complex aspects in these characters' lives is how their family's relationship with money and their own children is changed by making family time a business. Their children are their dependents, but they are also how they pay for everything in their lives, so the children grow up knowing that they need to perform so the family can survive, but at the same time, it's not their money, and they don't have any power over what business deals or life decisions their parents make.
While the book makes sure to portray all these families as loving, even if flawed in a complex and realistic way, I couldn't see the parents as anything other than lazy leeches that refused to get real jobs and made their children work for them, and live with the stress and consequences. In contrast, they made millions because that is the kind of money that is involved in this kind of industry.
I hope this book reaches influencer families, and most importantly their kids, or anyone young that has social media, because this book does a great job of showing the consequences of living such a public life, and having your most intimate moments exposed to the world before you can consent or develop a sense of your own personality and tastes, and then having to live with the image others have of you, not only when it comes to people knowing your name and face, but having social media posts impacting job opportunities or getting health insurance.
The second great theme in this book was how to participate in democracy and enact real change through organising, being persistent and understanding that there will be losses as well as wins, and those might be small or not look like what you imagine, since the way these teens decide to protect themselves and their younger siblings and others in their situation, was by having legislation passed and the book ends with a call to get registered to vote.
I would recommend this book to everyone, young and old. It addresses current themes that we will be seeing becoming part of the public discourse in the coming years, with an original plot structure and a great message at the end.
Thank you to NetGalley, Mad Cave Studios and Maverick for this DRC.
Other than that, I went into this book completely blind, so I was surprised that it catered to such a young audience through its art style and writing, but it made perfect sense, considering the themes it touches on and that the story is being told through the eyes of teens.
I deeply appreciated that these characters are not only diverse to check a box, but their religious, racial and queer identities are taken into account when it comes to the story, and in the details, such as their clothes and accessories. I loved reading a book that was so unashamedly queer, with the main character being ace and her best friend being non-binary, and multiple other characters also being part of the LGBTQ community.
It's often difficult for adults to write realistic teen characters, but this book not only did that, but it was obvious that the authors put in huge amounts of effort into researching not only the realities, consequences and dangers of having your childhood and teenage years publicised and monetised by others, but the different character's experiences, depending on their parent's online niche and parenting style.
One of the most interesting and complex aspects in these characters' lives is how their family's relationship with money and their own children is changed by making family time a business. Their children are their dependents, but they are also how they pay for everything in their lives, so the children grow up knowing that they need to perform so the family can survive, but at the same time, it's not their money, and they don't have any power over what business deals or life decisions their parents make.
While the book makes sure to portray all these families as loving, even if flawed in a complex and realistic way, I couldn't see the parents as anything other than lazy leeches that refused to get real jobs and made their children work for them, and live with the stress and consequences. In contrast, they made millions because that is the kind of money that is involved in this kind of industry.
I hope this book reaches influencer families, and most importantly their kids, or anyone young that has social media, because this book does a great job of showing the consequences of living such a public life, and having your most intimate moments exposed to the world before you can consent or develop a sense of your own personality and tastes, and then having to live with the image others have of you, not only when it comes to people knowing your name and face, but having social media posts impacting job opportunities or getting health insurance.
The second great theme in this book was how to participate in democracy and enact real change through organising, being persistent and understanding that there will be losses as well as wins, and those might be small or not look like what you imagine, since the way these teens decide to protect themselves and their younger siblings and others in their situation, was by having legislation passed and the book ends with a call to get registered to vote.
I would recommend this book to everyone, young and old. It addresses current themes that we will be seeing becoming part of the public discourse in the coming years, with an original plot structure and a great message at the end.
Thank you to NetGalley, Mad Cave Studios and Maverick for this DRC.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I think this is what a lot of parents don’t understand in this day of age, but it’s also such a difficult situation…
On one hand, it’s what they do for a living. On the other hand, you sacrifice so much in the process. Although, I do like James’ parents— Solely ‘cause they brought attention to such an important topic.
I totally understood Shane’s POV on their situation too, but I suppose that’s just how it seems looking from the outside of it—
How bad can going to amusement parks as a job be?
I think the key note is consent though and honestly, no child should be put through that type of exposure.
Especially if they express it so openly!!
Absolutely HATED Daisy’s Mom.
(And her Dad for not sticking up for her), but I also get it… It’s what pays the bills fr.
BUT the way she went about her sexuality was such a breach of trust and that’s what a healthy relationship requires…
I’m just happy they accepted her tbh, but the follower farming is crazy work.
Also, Byron’s parents are insane lmfao.
The clout chasing is real w/ them and they fr put their lives on the line for that AND made him record?
I cannot even fathom.
These poor kids 😭🤍
Overall, this had an important message, esp for kids raised in such an era of social media.
(And ESPECIALLY for the parents raising the kids.)
Everyone just needs boundaries fr. Anyways—
Absolutely obsessed w/ James, strictly ‘cause
#PROTECTTHEDOLLS 🏳️⚧️ The representation in this graphic novel was soo sooo lovely.
On one hand, it’s what they do for a living. On the other hand, you sacrifice so much in the process. Although, I do like James’ parents— Solely ‘cause they brought attention to such an important topic.
I totally understood Shane’s POV on their situation too, but I suppose that’s just how it seems looking from the outside of it—
How bad can going to amusement parks as a job be?
I think the key note is consent though and honestly, no child should be put through that type of exposure.
Especially if they express it so openly!!
Absolutely HATED Daisy’s Mom.
(And her Dad for not sticking up for her), but I also get it… It’s what pays the bills fr.
BUT the way she went about her sexuality was such a breach of trust and that’s what a healthy relationship requires…
I’m just happy they accepted her tbh, but the follower farming is crazy work.
Also, Byron’s parents are insane lmfao.
The clout chasing is real w/ them and they fr put their lives on the line for that AND made him record?
I cannot even fathom.
These poor kids 😭🤍
Overall, this had an important message, esp for kids raised in such an era of social media.
(And ESPECIALLY for the parents raising the kids.)
Everyone just needs boundaries fr. Anyways—
Absolutely obsessed w/ James, strictly ‘cause
#PROTECTTHEDOLLS 🏳️⚧️ The representation in this graphic novel was soo sooo lovely.
Read
February 26, 2026With I Didn't Ask For This, Jennie Wood tackles a deeply contemporary issue: the serious consequences of parents overexposing their children on social media, whether in terms of their private lives, their privacy, or their personal development. Through this comic book, the author questions the excesses of an era in which family intimacy becomes shared content, sometimes to the detriment of those who have not chosen to be exposed.
Jennie Wood highlights a current reality that raises many ethical questions: how far can parents go in sharing their family life? What impact does this overexposure have on children as they grow up? The comic book has the merit of opening up the debate and encouraging readers to reflect on practices that have become commonplace.
The parents depicted are mostly unbearable, selfish, and more immature than their children.
Unfortunately, although the subject matter is interesting, the pace can sometimes seem a little slow, which weakens the emotional impact.
Graphically, there is sometimes a lack of consistency in the faces between different panels.
Ultimately, I Didn't Ask For This remains a relevant read for its theme and the questions it raises, and may prompt readers to reflect on the possible excesses of a society where everything becomes content.
Jennie Wood highlights a current reality that raises many ethical questions: how far can parents go in sharing their family life? What impact does this overexposure have on children as they grow up? The comic book has the merit of opening up the debate and encouraging readers to reflect on practices that have become commonplace.
The parents depicted are mostly unbearable, selfish, and more immature than their children.
Unfortunately, although the subject matter is interesting, the pace can sometimes seem a little slow, which weakens the emotional impact.
Graphically, there is sometimes a lack of consistency in the faces between different panels.
Ultimately, I Didn't Ask For This remains a relevant read for its theme and the questions it raises, and may prompt readers to reflect on the possible excesses of a society where everything becomes content.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance publication.
A graphic novel about the kids behind the mommy bloggers. But it’s also about how laws are made in the USA and how teens can try to stand up for their rights (I suppose, I’m not American and the democratic progress over there doesn’t seem to be going very well at the moment, but no time like the present to inspire teens to do better). The angle of “teens try to get a child protection law passed because of their personal experience with how their parents are abusing the power they have over them” is a pretty good find. Sadly, there are too many characters and too little interpersonal tension. It just feels like a long pamphlet. The art also looks pretty rushed, with proportions that are all over the place. A shame, because I think there’s a good story here, if the authors had dared to go a bit further in what the parents were doing to their kids. Where are the van life TikTok parents? The unboxers? The skin care and medicine freaks?
I was also a bit surprised to see Tumblr in a book aimed at teens in the year 2026, and at the 2012’s Tumblr speak of the queer kids. Devil’s sacrament and all that.
But, Parc Asterix mention.
A graphic novel about the kids behind the mommy bloggers. But it’s also about how laws are made in the USA and how teens can try to stand up for their rights (I suppose, I’m not American and the democratic progress over there doesn’t seem to be going very well at the moment, but no time like the present to inspire teens to do better). The angle of “teens try to get a child protection law passed because of their personal experience with how their parents are abusing the power they have over them” is a pretty good find. Sadly, there are too many characters and too little interpersonal tension. It just feels like a long pamphlet. The art also looks pretty rushed, with proportions that are all over the place. A shame, because I think there’s a good story here, if the authors had dared to go a bit further in what the parents were doing to their kids. Where are the van life TikTok parents? The unboxers? The skin care and medicine freaks?
I was also a bit surprised to see Tumblr in a book aimed at teens in the year 2026, and at the 2012’s Tumblr speak of the queer kids. Devil’s sacrament and all that.
But, Parc Asterix mention.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
First I would like to thank NetGalley, the Authors the Artists and the Publisher for this ARC.
This is soooo beautiful and recognizable.
I get the message that they are trying to send. (I think)
It's not just about being outed online by anyone other than yourself, or that you have to spend every waking moment worrying about the welfare of your parents, because taking risks is their income, or you siblings being in the same dangerous spotlight as you nor is it that it's just using you to raise awareness for a reasonably unknown disease and that none of what you do is for you or is you or lets you be you.
It's also about the fact that even though they might have had the best intentions and mean well and do this supposedly for you.
The fact remains that you can't trust the people who are supposed to have your back, those who are supposed to be their for you, keep you safe, keep your secrets. Be your safety-net. Be your parents. And let You be You. Let You discover Who/What YOU wanna be.
It's about being safe, feeling safe and having options, having choices.
But they didn't get that.
This is also a very inclusive graphic novel, it was so colorful and open and I just adored it.
It gave me all the feels!
This is soooo beautiful and recognizable.
I get the message that they are trying to send. (I think)
It's not just about being outed online by anyone other than yourself, or that you have to spend every waking moment worrying about the welfare of your parents, because taking risks is their income, or you siblings being in the same dangerous spotlight as you nor is it that it's just using you to raise awareness for a reasonably unknown disease and that none of what you do is for you or is you or lets you be you.
It's also about the fact that even though they might have had the best intentions and mean well and do this supposedly for you.
The fact remains that you can't trust the people who are supposed to have your back, those who are supposed to be their for you, keep you safe, keep your secrets. Be your safety-net. Be your parents. And let You be You. Let You discover Who/What YOU wanna be.
It's about being safe, feeling safe and having options, having choices.
But they didn't get that.
This is also a very inclusive graphic novel, it was so colorful and open and I just adored it.
It gave me all the feels!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
"I didn't ask for this" is the haunting thought that our group of main characters share, who grew up having their life put online by their parents. This comic tries to interweave multiple storylines following the everyday life and (queer) romances of those kids in their real life with a strenuous storyline of changing laws regarding kids being allowed to be posted, showcased and monetized upon by their parents online.
At the center of all this is Daisy, daughter of a mummy-blogger and a young woman who has been outed by her mother online before having a chance to reflect on her own sexuality at her own pace.
This graphic has a lot of going on and cannot always balance its topics equally. But forgiving that struggle, it attempts to start an earnest conversation about child exploitation, labour, online content, and spices this up with queer struggles. Furthermore, even if likely simplified, I applaud this YA/middle-age graphic novel for giving a spotlight on law-making and how you may already make a difference as just a teen.
If you are more with family bloggers, there is not much this comic adds, but recommend for people interested in the topic or educating others, especially on the younger side.
Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for an ARC for an honest review.
At the center of all this is Daisy, daughter of a mummy-blogger and a young woman who has been outed by her mother online before having a chance to reflect on her own sexuality at her own pace.
This graphic has a lot of going on and cannot always balance its topics equally. But forgiving that struggle, it attempts to start an earnest conversation about child exploitation, labour, online content, and spices this up with queer struggles. Furthermore, even if likely simplified, I applaud this YA/middle-age graphic novel for giving a spotlight on law-making and how you may already make a difference as just a teen.
If you are more with family bloggers, there is not much this comic adds, but recommend for people interested in the topic or educating others, especially on the younger side.
Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for an ARC for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Sehr starkes und wichtiges Thema, das hier behandelt wird. Es geht um Jugendliche, deren Eltern Influencer sind und ihr ganzes Leben online posten. Die Gruppe will ein Gesetz auf den Weg bringen, dass Eltern daran hindert, Content über die Kinder gegen deren Willen online zu posten. Denn sie haben nicht danach gefragt, ob sie berühmt und bekannt werden wollen.
Der Comic beleuchtet verschiedene Aspekte und Lebenswege, die teilweise sehr unterschiedlich, aber doch auch ähnlich sind. Er zeigt, wie Jugendliche unter sowas leiden und welche Gedanken sie sich damit machen. Neben den Vorteilen, die andere immer in sowas sehen, sind bei ihnen die Nachteile klar im Fokus. Sie werden auf das Online Image reduziert und nicht als die Person, die sie eigentlich sind. Das tut einem beim Lesen weh, denn man fühlt doch auch sehr in ihr Wesen hinein. Das Artwork war eher durchschnittlich, an manchen Stellen war es recht detailliert, an anderen etwas unsauber. Man konnte die verschiedenen Charaktere aber gut erkennen und auseinanderhalten. Teilweise war es etwas textlastig, aber dadurch wurde vieles gut und ausführlich erklärt. Alles in allem bin ich ganz zufrieden und hatte Spaß beim Lesen. Ein sehr spannendes und interessantes Thema, das man in der Art eher weniger sieht.
Der Comic beleuchtet verschiedene Aspekte und Lebenswege, die teilweise sehr unterschiedlich, aber doch auch ähnlich sind. Er zeigt, wie Jugendliche unter sowas leiden und welche Gedanken sie sich damit machen. Neben den Vorteilen, die andere immer in sowas sehen, sind bei ihnen die Nachteile klar im Fokus. Sie werden auf das Online Image reduziert und nicht als die Person, die sie eigentlich sind. Das tut einem beim Lesen weh, denn man fühlt doch auch sehr in ihr Wesen hinein. Das Artwork war eher durchschnittlich, an manchen Stellen war es recht detailliert, an anderen etwas unsauber. Man konnte die verschiedenen Charaktere aber gut erkennen und auseinanderhalten. Teilweise war es etwas textlastig, aber dadurch wurde vieles gut und ausführlich erklärt. Alles in allem bin ich ganz zufrieden und hatte Spaß beim Lesen. Ein sehr spannendes und interessantes Thema, das man in der Art eher weniger sieht.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you Net Galley for the advanced copy to review.
I really enjoyed this. Just this week, before I even started this book, I heard about a law that is passing in different states about exploiting kids and was happy to hear about it. I never thought what that journey could look like. This was a really interesting journey to see happen. I also liked how even when the kids were upset with their parents, this was about them getting control over their lives not about them cutting their parents out.
I think my favorite part is how this explained the justice system and how laws get passed in a way that kids can understand. There's obviously a LOT more to it than what we saw on our end but the general outline of what you need to do to make changes was refreshing to see. The common person needs to get more involved in politics, whether that be at the national or local level, in order for us to dig ourselves out of the mess our country has become and truly make sure people are being protected and represented. Making ourselves heard and reaching out to our reps to make sure they are working on issues that matter to us is very important. So this was awesome to see. I loved the end that talked about voting and getting involved. This was such a good book.
I really enjoyed this. Just this week, before I even started this book, I heard about a law that is passing in different states about exploiting kids and was happy to hear about it. I never thought what that journey could look like. This was a really interesting journey to see happen. I also liked how even when the kids were upset with their parents, this was about them getting control over their lives not about them cutting their parents out.
I think my favorite part is how this explained the justice system and how laws get passed in a way that kids can understand. There's obviously a LOT more to it than what we saw on our end but the general outline of what you need to do to make changes was refreshing to see. The common person needs to get more involved in politics, whether that be at the national or local level, in order for us to dig ourselves out of the mess our country has become and truly make sure people are being protected and represented. Making ourselves heard and reaching out to our reps to make sure they are working on issues that matter to us is very important. So this was awesome to see. I loved the end that talked about voting and getting involved. This was such a good book.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Mad Cave Studios for a digital copy of this graphic novel in exchange for my review!
I really enjoyed the art and characters in this graphic novel. It would be a good graphic novel for teens, and is very topical with the concern around child exploitation in the social media age that we have seen being discussed recently. Many of the characters seemed interesting and I wish there was more about them, a lot of this graphic novel seemed educational. Which I can understand for people that know less about the recent attempts to prevent child exploitation from family vloggers and social media influencers, but to someone that is familiar, it was a little too much focus on the government process and other educational elements. I think it is an important message, but I was more interested in following the character's stories and I wish I got to see more of their lives. There was more potential here to get into more of the horrific sexual exploitation side that is a big complaint of this industry, although I understand why they might stay away from that topic for a teenage audience.
I really enjoyed the art and characters in this graphic novel. It would be a good graphic novel for teens, and is very topical with the concern around child exploitation in the social media age that we have seen being discussed recently. Many of the characters seemed interesting and I wish there was more about them, a lot of this graphic novel seemed educational. Which I can understand for people that know less about the recent attempts to prevent child exploitation from family vloggers and social media influencers, but to someone that is familiar, it was a little too much focus on the government process and other educational elements. I think it is an important message, but I was more interested in following the character's stories and I wish I got to see more of their lives. There was more potential here to get into more of the horrific sexual exploitation side that is a big complaint of this industry, although I understand why they might stay away from that topic for a teenage audience.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I am so mixed about this. On one hand, this story shines a lens on the harms of using your children as content on social media and what it does to the kids psychologically. But on the other hand, this story can't seem to decide if it wants to be purely educational or purely dramatic. It can't really blend dramatic and informational, and ends up feeling a bit flat on both aspects. I also feel like there are too many main characters, and they try to focus on too many interpersonal storylines. The tone of this story also doesn't quite read as YA, but the writing feels more like it's Middle Grade level. The message is important, and this graphic novel is a good way to tell it to kids and teens, but I just wish the story were a bit better paced. The art was decent enough, and the character designs felt like they could be real kids.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you Netgalley for this arc
Following the adventures of a variety of influencer's kids, mommy bloggers, and so on, we join them as they support each other and try to get legislation passed to protect themselves and people like them.
The variety of characters, personalities, and identities was lovely to see and read with. Each of the major characters had their own struggle they had to tackle and though we spend a brief time with some of them, they all felt fleshed-out and like their own people.
My own concern: Though I can acknowledge our main protag is still figuring her things out, as an ace person whose married and is not aromantic, I would like to remind folks that asexual does not mean uninterested in dating. The novel seems to conflate the two and that is a tad frustrating. (Character responded to discussion on dating by saying she wasn't interested because she's ace.)
Following the adventures of a variety of influencer's kids, mommy bloggers, and so on, we join them as they support each other and try to get legislation passed to protect themselves and people like them.
The variety of characters, personalities, and identities was lovely to see and read with. Each of the major characters had their own struggle they had to tackle and though we spend a brief time with some of them, they all felt fleshed-out and like their own people.
My own concern: Though I can acknowledge our main protag is still figuring her things out, as an ace person whose married and is not aromantic, I would like to remind folks that asexual does not mean uninterested in dating. The novel seems to conflate the two and that is a tad frustrating. (Character responded to discussion on dating by saying she wasn't interested because she's ace.)
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The plot of this was really compelling and I loved how much casual MC queer representation we had. I found the artwork to be inconsistent, and there were several typo/editing issues I spotted that I hope get fixed by official publication. I also found the dialogue between the characters to be rather contrived for plot points rather than flowing naturally based on individual character motivations. I would've liked to see more exploration of the concept of "sharenting" being perceived as a "champagne problem" because the few bits we got felt like they created large animosity between characters but were then brushed away just as quickly. I felt like I learned a lot about how sharenting leads to exploitation of kids and the various effects it can have, which was fascinating. I think this graphic novel is important to that conversation, as well as conversations about activism, being outed, and support groups for teens.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to netgalley for the advanced online copy of this comic.
This comic felt less like a pleasure read and more like an informational comic for parents as to how they can ruin their children's lives by posting them on social media. It felt too.......well....informative and not fun to read. I like how it goes through each of the kids' stories but something about it just wasn't hitting right. Maybe because the problems were jumping at me immediately as a reader? I also didn't like how the text was so clear, yet the graphics were blurry. Its like when formatting the comic someone selected all of the text and chose "Bring to the front" which made everything behind it slightly blurry. It just isn't comfortable for the eyes to read.
Overall, I think this book is a miss which is why I didn't finish it.
This comic felt less like a pleasure read and more like an informational comic for parents as to how they can ruin their children's lives by posting them on social media. It felt too.......well....informative and not fun to read. I like how it goes through each of the kids' stories but something about it just wasn't hitting right. Maybe because the problems were jumping at me immediately as a reader? I also didn't like how the text was so clear, yet the graphics were blurry. Its like when formatting the comic someone selected all of the text and chose "Bring to the front" which made everything behind it slightly blurry. It just isn't comfortable for the eyes to read.
Overall, I think this book is a miss which is why I didn't finish it.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Daisy’s every development has been spread online by her mother that runs a blog in Chicago. While her mother makes the majority of the bacon in the household, as Daisy gets older, she consistently crosses boundaries when it comes to her children. Over the summer, Daisy realized that she is asexual and instead of having the time and space to figure out where she is on that spectrum, her mother blasts the information on her blog. This is the last straw. Her mother must STOP. Daisy ends up joining a group called Not Your Baby that has other kids whose whole lives have been blasted across the internet by their parents. They all comes to a consensus that it overdue to work towards their own rights.
#ThxNetGalley #JennieWood #IDidntAskForThis
#ThxNetGalley #JennieWood #IDidntAskForThis
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
3 🌟
This was a nice coming of age story, where a group of teens stand up to their parents who use their life as content, where it feels like their children don’t get to live a life of their own that isn’t private. It follows our Main Character where her mother outs her as asexual on her blog/ social media. Where the whole world knows without her consent. Which causes her to find a group called “Not your baby anymore”, where other teens who are going through the same issues work together to pass a law to protect children from partner exploitation in the area they live! It was a very interesting read!!
Thank you so much Netgalley and Mad Cave Studios for an ARC in exchange for a honest review.
This was a nice coming of age story, where a group of teens stand up to their parents who use their life as content, where it feels like their children don’t get to live a life of their own that isn’t private. It follows our Main Character where her mother outs her as asexual on her blog/ social media. Where the whole world knows without her consent. Which causes her to find a group called “Not your baby anymore”, where other teens who are going through the same issues work together to pass a law to protect children from partner exploitation in the area they live! It was a very interesting read!!
Thank you so much Netgalley and Mad Cave Studios for an ARC in exchange for a honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This morphed into a different book from what it started out to be. I thought it was going to be about a teenager whose mother outs her on social media about being asexual and how she deals with it. But what it ends up being about ultimately is about the parents of young influencers and how they exploit their children. How the kids have to grow up in the public eye without any ability to figure things our on their own or make mistakes. A large portion of this book is about them trying to get laws passed to protect themselves from their parents when they are the main breadwinners for their families and the parents either intentionally or unintentionally take advantage of that. It's interesting in that regard. It just didn't need to be 210 pages to get its intent across.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
I was very excited to read this as I was intrigued by the concept, the negative impact on kids who have social media parents. However, I think it failed to deliver on that. While the story was good and moved along at a steady pace, it focused more on trying to change the laws about social media exploitation of children rather than the emotional and psychological impacts caused by their social media parents. I feel like the impacts on the children were almost glossed over. Overall, the focus kinda got lost along the way which was disappointing.
I was very excited to read this as I was intrigued by the concept, the negative impact on kids who have social media parents. However, I think it failed to deliver on that. While the story was good and moved along at a steady pace, it focused more on trying to change the laws about social media exploitation of children rather than the emotional and psychological impacts caused by their social media parents. I feel like the impacts on the children were almost glossed over. Overall, the focus kinda got lost along the way which was disappointing.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
3.5/5
A graphic novel about the kids of family vloggers/bloggers and them fighting against it.
The artwork in this felt really nostalgic, it reminded me of a childhood cartoon or something. I can't quite place it.
I liked the idea of this story, but I did find it a bit flat at times. But I will always be pro a story that is anti family vlogging.
This was a quick read and still enjoyable.
Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!
A graphic novel about the kids of family vloggers/bloggers and them fighting against it.
The artwork in this felt really nostalgic, it reminded me of a childhood cartoon or something. I can't quite place it.
I liked the idea of this story, but I did find it a bit flat at times. But I will always be pro a story that is anti family vlogging.
This was a quick read and still enjoyable.
Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The art is good but the direction of the story and the characters were pretty boring. I just felt the mum ruined it for me with her posting her child every single day and annoying her af every single time with her friends. It just wasn’t a great read from me unfortunately.
Got this via netgalley and publisher
Got this via netgalley and publisher
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Great read!!! I enjoyed the storyline!! I love that they all had problems and it takes a lot for them all to overcame it. I love the ending that they all are finally happy. The story pace at first was a bit slow but it worth the read. Great read!!
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Thank you To the publisher and netgalley for giving me the chance to read this book in advance~
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Thank you To the publisher and netgalley for giving me the chance to read this book in advance~
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.
The artwork felt incredibly nostalgic, it gave me such 90s feel.
While I loved the concept and the story felt a little flat in places. Some moments didn’t hit as hard as I hoped, and I wanted a bit more depth emotionally.
Still, it was a quick, engaging read that I enjoyed overall.
The artwork felt incredibly nostalgic, it gave me such 90s feel.
While I loved the concept and the story felt a little flat in places. Some moments didn’t hit as hard as I hoped, and I wanted a bit more depth emotionally.
Still, it was a quick, engaging read that I enjoyed overall.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Representation: asexual white protagonist, non-binary gay Asian secondary character, gay white secondary character, Black secondary character, lesbian white secondary character, lesbian Asian tertiary character, tertiary characters of colour.
Content Warning: outing, social media overuse.
Despite the important and current theme, the pacing was not it.
Content Warning: outing, social media overuse.
Despite the important and current theme, the pacing was not it.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Mad Cave Studios for the e-ARC of I Didn’t Ask For This!
5 / 5 ⭐
I enjoyed every part of this graphic novel. The art was cute, the story was both well entertaining and important, and there are even resources at the end, Would highly recommend.
5 / 5 ⭐
I enjoyed every part of this graphic novel. The art was cute, the story was both well entertaining and important, and there are even resources at the end, Would highly recommend.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for a copy of this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review.
I really loved this graphic novel, and it highlighted and reminded me why it is so important to protect our children from social media.
This book follows a group of teens called "Not Your Baby Anymore" on their journey to spread awareness of the damage that is caused from people using their children on social media to gain a following.
I loved the little side stories throughout, and also really appreciated seeing the process of building this awareness and an idea of how to get something legislated with the government.
I think it is really informative and a must read, especially if you are posting your children online without their consent.
I really loved this graphic novel, and it highlighted and reminded me why it is so important to protect our children from social media.
This book follows a group of teens called "Not Your Baby Anymore" on their journey to spread awareness of the damage that is caused from people using their children on social media to gain a following.
I loved the little side stories throughout, and also really appreciated seeing the process of building this awareness and an idea of how to get something legislated with the government.
I think it is really informative and a must read, especially if you are posting your children online without their consent.
Review of advance copy
This had great potential. It just was flat for me.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I received this book from the publisher (Mad Cave Studio/Maverick) on Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.
I was very curious about this book when I saw it on Netgalley. A graphic novel about teens who are done with their social media parents and the fact everything they do will go online? Very now and very much interesting to me. However I hadn’t expected I would get so emotionally invested in these characters. I definitely cried while reading this one and I couldn’t stop reading.
In this one we first meet a girl named Daisy. Daisy loves making music (she wants to go far with that and I love seeing her practice, create songs, and more). Daisy is looking forward to high school. However, she is not looking forward to her mom photographing, filming, posting content about it. Or anything. Her mom has been sharing all about her life since she was just 6 weeks old. Everything from baby steps to foods to going to school is documented. And Daisy is done. She already has made it that less content is made, but she also worries about her younger brother (who is now still at the age that he likes it, but does he really know the consequences?). We see her struggle through things and things are escalated when her mom outs her online. My heart broke for Daisy. She hasn’t even had the chance to explore. To think more about it. Her mom just yeeted it online. I just wanted to step into the story and slap the mom and hug Daisy. Holy crap, imagine doing that to your daughter. To go that far for content. I was pissed. I was livid.
Thankfully, Daisy gets an invite to the Not Your Baby Anymore group filled with teens like her. And so the books shifts from just Daisy to the other kids. Daisy is still the MC and she gets the most screentime, but we also follow and learn about several of the group. From Casper whose parents exploited his Celiac. Or Sasha who is constantly dragged to theme parks even if she wants to just have a normal life with school, friends, sleepovers. Or how Byron almost lost his parents since they are daredevil content creators who let their son film them as they do terrifying stunts. And this wasn’t the first time they almost died/got injured. I really liked that the author didn’t just focus on Daisy but instead also showed us a few other teens and what they are going through.
And then comes the biggest thing. Sasha who was in France with her parents learns about a social media law that protects kids. You cannot photograph or make content if your kids say no. However there is nothing like that in the US. Nothing at all through the country. And so a big focus of the book becomes the teens trying to group together and make something happen. I love that Daisy’s best friend Shane’s (who was such a fun character and I love how supportive they are of Daisy) mom could help them out as that is her job, and I love seeing the teens try their best to get things done. From checking representatives (who were mostly assholes) to going to congress to more. It wasn’t an easy road and we can see that some got a bit meh about it, but still they kept going. I got more and more emotionally invested for the group to get this bill to pass. They had worked so hard on it, they were so driven, I just wanted it to work out for them. And not just for them but for their siblings, for future kids.
In the meantime we see relationships form, various teens make big plans outside of the bill but to better their lives, I loved seeing them meet up and become even bigger friends than they were online. It was so fun to see!
Throughout the book I just wanted to shake the parents. Well OK, not Shane’s (his parents are normal), but all the other parents, heck yes. How for instance Daisy’s mom said that she is glad she didn’t grow up with social media which made me just go like WTF. Or how Sasha’s parents think she should be happy. Or how Casper’s parents think they did it all for him and he should be grateful. Like hello. Your kids tell you they are unhappy and you just don’t care?
The ending was just wonderful, I am really happy with how it all ended. I won’t tell you how or what, you need to read the ending, but I can tell you I was happy and crying. It was just perfect.
I really enjoyed the art! The style was a lot of fun and I liked the character designs, each character sparkles (even the side cast).
All in all, if you want an emotional ride of a book I would highly recommend this book to all! Be sure to check it out!
Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/
I was very curious about this book when I saw it on Netgalley. A graphic novel about teens who are done with their social media parents and the fact everything they do will go online? Very now and very much interesting to me. However I hadn’t expected I would get so emotionally invested in these characters. I definitely cried while reading this one and I couldn’t stop reading.
In this one we first meet a girl named Daisy. Daisy loves making music (she wants to go far with that and I love seeing her practice, create songs, and more). Daisy is looking forward to high school. However, she is not looking forward to her mom photographing, filming, posting content about it. Or anything. Her mom has been sharing all about her life since she was just 6 weeks old. Everything from baby steps to foods to going to school is documented. And Daisy is done. She already has made it that less content is made, but she also worries about her younger brother (who is now still at the age that he likes it, but does he really know the consequences?). We see her struggle through things and things are escalated when her mom outs her online. My heart broke for Daisy. She hasn’t even had the chance to explore. To think more about it. Her mom just yeeted it online. I just wanted to step into the story and slap the mom and hug Daisy. Holy crap, imagine doing that to your daughter. To go that far for content. I was pissed. I was livid.
Thankfully, Daisy gets an invite to the Not Your Baby Anymore group filled with teens like her. And so the books shifts from just Daisy to the other kids. Daisy is still the MC and she gets the most screentime, but we also follow and learn about several of the group. From Casper whose parents exploited his Celiac. Or Sasha who is constantly dragged to theme parks even if she wants to just have a normal life with school, friends, sleepovers. Or how Byron almost lost his parents since they are daredevil content creators who let their son film them as they do terrifying stunts. And this wasn’t the first time they almost died/got injured. I really liked that the author didn’t just focus on Daisy but instead also showed us a few other teens and what they are going through.
And then comes the biggest thing. Sasha who was in France with her parents learns about a social media law that protects kids. You cannot photograph or make content if your kids say no. However there is nothing like that in the US. Nothing at all through the country. And so a big focus of the book becomes the teens trying to group together and make something happen. I love that Daisy’s best friend Shane’s (who was such a fun character and I love how supportive they are of Daisy) mom could help them out as that is her job, and I love seeing the teens try their best to get things done. From checking representatives (who were mostly assholes) to going to congress to more. It wasn’t an easy road and we can see that some got a bit meh about it, but still they kept going. I got more and more emotionally invested for the group to get this bill to pass. They had worked so hard on it, they were so driven, I just wanted it to work out for them. And not just for them but for their siblings, for future kids.
In the meantime we see relationships form, various teens make big plans outside of the bill but to better their lives, I loved seeing them meet up and become even bigger friends than they were online. It was so fun to see!
Throughout the book I just wanted to shake the parents. Well OK, not Shane’s (his parents are normal), but all the other parents, heck yes. How for instance Daisy’s mom said that she is glad she didn’t grow up with social media which made me just go like WTF. Or how Sasha’s parents think she should be happy. Or how Casper’s parents think they did it all for him and he should be grateful. Like hello. Your kids tell you they are unhappy and you just don’t care?
The ending was just wonderful, I am really happy with how it all ended. I won’t tell you how or what, you need to read the ending, but I can tell you I was happy and crying. It was just perfect.
I really enjoyed the art! The style was a lot of fun and I liked the character designs, each character sparkles (even the side cast).
All in all, if you want an emotional ride of a book I would highly recommend this book to all! Be sure to check it out!
Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/
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