Dead Lucky

There’s no shortage of surveys that many teenagers long to be famous, even though they don’t know what they want to be famous for. A quick glance at most reality TV shows demonstrates that the idea of celebrity status hasn’t changed much from the dire days of the original Celebrity Squares, with so-called celebrities that few, if any, had even heard of.

So, if you recoil in horror from I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! And Celebrity Love Island, prepare to have your world view rocked again when Dead Lucky catapults you into the sphere of teenage mega-influencers, where there is big money to be made from possessing a huge social media following. To channels like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and the like, you can now add PlayMii, a fictional online platform where teenagers flock in their millions to follow the daily life of their favourite PlayMeeps, watching them put on their make up (yes, of course there’s a sponsorship deal involved), wear the latest designer clothes (yep, more product endorsement in return for freebies or an even more lucrative contract) or talk about their relationships (tangled and overheated, naturally).

The ultimate PlayMii experience comes when popular influencer Xavier Bailey appears to have been murdered by a masked attacker online, in full view of his adoring fans. At first everyone thinks this is just another of Xav’s famous pranks, but doubts and concerns quickly grow. By the time PlayMii take the shocking video down, it’s been viewed by three million people. Online opinion is sharply divided between Xav’s traumatised followers and those who think he deserved his fate. An extreme reaction? Welcome to the internet, it’s not a nice place at times.

Many of Xav’s detractors side with his former boyfriend, Ed Adewumi, cruelly dumped by Xav in full view of their PlayMii followers, but Ed’s not the only one to have had issues with Xav. There’s no shortage of suspects, even amongst his so-called friends and ‘fam’.

I dived straight into Andreina Cordani’s second book with almost indecent haste. Her tangled web of intense but often wholly fake friendships played out in the harsh spotlight of millions of viewers, many of them hostile, was absolutely fascinating from the start and the book never slackened its grip. One of the main narrators is Maxine Fernando, famous for being ditzy and wearing leopard print. Her on-air gaffs are legion. To her fans she’s the girl-next-door, if the girl-next-door has her own agent, manager and a fortune that runs to millions. Maxine is nowhere near as air-headed as people think. She knows the leopard print stationary range that Carl, her mum’s partner, has signed her up for is, to put it bluntly, utter shite, but she’s overruled.

Maxime hates the tension Xav brought to their friendship group, bound together since they started a popular prank channel at school, but when rumours start circulating that Xav might have been killed to stop him dishing the dirt on someone in their circle, she can’t help looking around with suspicion, then the emails start …

For all their fame and fortune, Xav, Maxine, Leni, Andy and Ed come over as real people, as does Xav’s secret best friend, Sam, who lives with a father still wallowing in grief after the death of his wife and adored younger child. Sam lives in a house where nothing is ever thrown away and desperately yearns for friendship. I quickly started to care about the teenagers – well, some of them, anyway – and I very much wanted to know who whodunnit as well as why they dunnit and so galloped through the book in two sittings.

The spotlight Cordani shines on the toxicity endemic on so many unregulated and poorly moderated online platforms is both penetrating and insightful. This is a story told with an insider’s authenticity by someone who has seen both the good and the bad in online interaction.  Despite their seemingly privileged lives, the main influencers in the group, Maxine and Leni, work their designer socks off to stay at the top of their game. Yes, luck might have been involved at the start, but after that, hard work came into play. Dead Lucky might just be what a lot of teenagers need to put them off wanting to be famous – but somehow, I don’t think so, not with the lure of posh flats, designer gear and the adulation that comes with a glittering celeb lifestyle, despite the knowledge that the gold might only be skin deep and all to easily pierced by intrusive and hostile reality.