Proceed With Caution:
This book contains panic attacks, catfishing, and violence.
The Basics:
No Filter and Other Lies is narrated by seventeen-year-old Kat, a budding photographer. She's also addicted to Instagram and is upset that she doesn't have as many followers as her friends and others, because she's doing important work! Then after a wild night, she makes a fake account using a friend's photo and starts getting the attention she feels like she deserves. She knows what she's doing is wrong, but she can't stop, especially after she meets a great girl through this fake account.
My Thoughts:
Several things bothered me when reading No Filter and Other Lies. The first being Kat's friend group. Luis is the absolute worst. She even doesn't seem to like him very much. He definitely felt like a real teenage boy, but there's no way Kat was friends with him. We were given no history to how they even became "friends" or at least in the same friend group. As for Marcus, I kept forgetting he exists. He had no personality outside of overachiever. Then there's Hari, who wasn't so bad. He's Kat's #1 BFF, but he felt like he was just there to add extra tension, since Kat really doesn't face any real problems.
I also had to agree with Hari that Kat's secret is stupid. Her feelings about being left behind by her parents are totally legit and I felt bad for her, and did really want to know why that happened. But the fact that she's so scared of people finding out that she lives with her grandparents is bizarre. Is she really so self-absorbed to think that she's the only kid who lives with their grandparents (or other family member? heck, even non-family) or that anyone would actually care? It's not like it would make her less popular than she already is.
Sure, other kids probably don't live literally down the street from their parents, but no one has to know those details unless she specifically tells them! No one is going to automatically assume she's being raised by her grandparents because her parents decided to move house and not take her with them. There's a small explanation as to where this "lie" started, so I get as a child she listened to what her mom wanted, even if she didn't understand. But she's seventeen now. She knows it's wrong. She should also know that living with her grandparents isn't something awful that other kids will mock her for.
Then there's the Instagram issue. I desperately wanted to read No Filter and Other Lies because of Kat's catfishing. She uses photos she took of a friend to make a second Instagram account, because no one seems to care about her photography on her main account. That's all fine and messed up and intriguing, until I realized something. When Kat started posting as "Max" she used a gorgeous photo, like she did on her main, but she paired it with a thoughtful caption, alt-text, proper hashtags, and she even wrote out an editotal calendar! Not once did she mention doing any of that for her real account.
I'm not arguing that people don't prefer to follow pretty white women, but Kat's photography account would have gotten a ton more engagement than it currently was if she put in that same level of effort. If she was doing all that, it was never mentioned, so I'm assuming she didn't. Instagram isn't 100% against her just because she's a fat brown girl showing fashionable brown people like she thinks it is. Plus, Elena is proof of that. She's fat and doing great!
Which brings me to my next issue with No Filter and Other Lies. Of course, it's inevitable that Kat is going to start chatting with someone as "Max" and catching feelings while being caught up in her messy web of lies. I was quite looking forward to how that would go. But early on, Kat is having a bad day and needs to talk, so she turns to Elena, her new online friend. Instead of talking about her current problem (but changing some details because she is a liar and Max is not her), she makes up a totally different, unrelated situation. How is that going to help you? It's not like Elena would know the difference?! I don't have a problem with Kat being a liar, but the author chose some weird lies.
I wanted to love No Filter and Other Lies, but it simply didn't work for me. The fake Instagram account using a real person premise is fantastic! But everything else was a big ol' mess. What saved it from being a complete disaster was that amazing ending. First, I cried, because dogs always make me cry. But beyond that, there are real consequences for Kat's actions. There's no limp slap on the wrist because she "made a mistake." She screwed up and she gets what's coming to her. I definitely appreciate the author giving this a realistic and hard-hitting ending.