Lottie Moggach

Very interesting take on social media - Leila is a dowdy, shut-in teenager traumatised by the death of her mother. She is drawn in by a sinister and manipulative man to cover for the suicide of the brilliant, mercurial Tess. Leila will pretend to be Tess online, as Tess is exhausted by her bipolar disorder and through this plan wants to stop her friends and family being hurt by her decision to die. But Leila's peculiar Aspergersian blindness soon sees the plan spiral out of control as Leila wakes up to the possibilities of being Tess, even if only virtually, and all despite the fact that Leila is unable to properly process the relationships and subtleties of the worldly Tess.

It's a car crash waiting to happen, of course, but there are some wonderful observations and set pieces. Leila is a really nice example of a narrator who is not unreliable, per se - the audience is so much better placed to see what's going on than Leila could ever be. Nevertheless, from the security of her tiny bedroom Leila ends up on a whistle stop tour of what it's like to be an adult that will change her forever.

Definitely worth a go.
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This is one of those reads that I know will follow me for days. In odd moments here and there, I will wonder what is happening to the characters now. Much of the plot - lonely woman sucked into online community making assumptions that are clearly not valid - is transparent but even so, the story line sucked me in like Leila on the Red Pill site. I 'read' the audio version and the experience was heightened by the British accent of the very excellent reader as well as the quasi exotic British details of the story. This is a brilliant first novel. Best I've read in a while.… (more)