Title: Bad Influence
Author: Stefanie London
Release Date: February 26, 2019
Annie Maxwell created the Bad Bachelors app to warn women away from guys like Joe Preston. Too bad she won't take her own advice...
Annie had her whole life figured out...until her fiancé left her when his career took off. If that wasn't bad enough, every society blog posted pictures of him escorting a woman wearing her wedding ring. To help the women of New York avoid men like her ex, she created the Bad Bachelors app.
Outside his stellar career, CEO Joe Preston has made a lot of mistakes. None was worse than leaving the love of his life when she needed him most. Now, he's ready for a second chance. He may still be one heck of a bad influence, but when Annie's safety is threatened by a hacker, Joe is the only one who can save her - and he'll do whatever it takes to win her back.
I know I've been talking about me misunderstanding blurbs - wherein I completely misunderstand the direction that the book will take - here on the blog for some time now, and what do you know, today it happens again. Reading the blurb, Bad Influence sounds like your normal second chance love story (and you all ought to know just how much I love my second chance love stories), and while it is that, it's so much more. To be honest, this is a difficult review to write because I want to do justice to how incredible this book is.
So... Without further ado, let me try to do just that.
I'm not going to sugarcoat just how painful it is to read the first few chapters of this book. We read about Annie's breakup three years ago, and how life isn't really going that well for her. Annie created an app called Bad Bachelors to help the women of New York navigate their dating lives, and while she only wanted to help, the app has its fair share of harsh critics. Bad Bachelors also caused a fight between Annie and of her best friends, Remi, and from the get go, you feel Annie's crushing loneliness, and how lost she is. And now, as if life couldn't be bad enough, she runs into her ex, Joe - the same ex that broke her heart three years ago.
Annie and Joe's breakup was extremely heartbreaking to read. Three years ago, Annie and Joe were supposed to move to Singapore for his job, but after learning that her mom has cancer, Annie opts to stay with her family. Joe accuses Annie of never discussing her decisions with him, and he leaves her for Singapore. The portrayal of the break up is very black and white - Annie didn't do anything wrong, and it was Joe who took things the wrong way. As the story progresses however, we start to learn more about Annie and Joe's relationship, and since we get both their POVs, we learn that things are not as simple as they seem. A relationship, after all, is between two people, and as cliche as it sounds, it takes two to tango. Both Annie and Joe made mistakes, but instead of acknowledging their own mistakes, they blamed each other for how their relationship ended. Their break up is an extremely realistic portrayal of how even the best of relationships can turn sour without open communication and because of too much pride, and when it does, it's very seldom only one person's fault.
Annie created Bad Bachelor after she learned of Joe's engagement... and what she wanted to do in a nutshell is to help out women weed out 'bad' men from their lives. Annie had the best of intentions, but unfortunately, there will always be people who use these inventions wrongly. I mean, come on, I doubt Mark Zuckerberg ever envisioned that Facebook will be a hub for fake news. And now, because of the people who used Bad Bachelor this way, Annie finds herself against a hacker who will dox her if she doesn't delete Bad Bachelor. I felt for Annie. She only wanted to help women, and now, she finds herself in danger, and things very much out of her control. I enjoyed reading about Annie examining what Bad Bachelor has become, and what the future for her app is. Before the hacker, Annie has only paid attention to Bad Bachelor's positives, but this issue has forced herself to ponder the negatives, and whether she believes the good outweighs the bad, or vice versa.
Throughout her problems with the hacker, Annie trusts only Joe to help her out. And through Joe helping her out, they then navigate what their relationship is now, and whether they think their relationship has a future. Unlike most second chance stories, Annie and Joe are desperate for closure so that they can finally move on with their lives. This is what makes this book such an emotional and heartbreaking read - I've grown used to second chance stories that have one of the main characters sure from the beginning that he/she wants a second chance, and Bad Influence is not that story. It was established pretty early on that Annie and Joe still cared a lot for each other, and that there was still love between them, but its whether or not they have a future that they're unsure about. I believe that this is what makes Bad Influence a compelling read - it went off the script, and in doing, it added more depth to the story.
I honest to god cannot recommend Bad Influence enough. The characters are portrayed so realistically, and I personally love books that make me examine how I typically tackle situations, and I got to experience that in Bad Bachelor and so much more. This book is such an emotional read, so multi-layered, and it also holds the honor of being the first book that made me cry this 2019. If I somehow haven't convinced you yet, let me try again - read this book now!
Rating: 5 Stars
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