Girl: Ultra-Processed

A searing look at diet culture and all its ugly consequences, from the talented writer of Influential.

A bold, body-positive YA about friendship, dating and self-love. Girls like Sydney don''t get rejected, because girls like Sydney aren''t real . . . when I''m Sydney my body doesn''t matter. I''m wearing hers. Saffron Saldana can''t stop comparing herself to the other women in her life and she only feels good when she is catfishing boys online. She welcomes in the New Year wishing she was as desirable as her best friend Poppy or as confident as her SlimIt coach mother. But when Saffron takes on an alter ego, Sydney, an impossibly beautiful AI-generated Instagram model, she finds she has control over how others perceive her for the first time in a long time, and she likes the power. Pretending to be Sydney seems like a bit of harmless fun, but suddenly Saffron finds she is in too deep, with no idea how to stop what she has set in motion. Girl: Ultra-Processed explores what it is like to be a teenage girl in our current body-obsessed world while juggling family drama, friend dynamics, dating, betrayals and major life changes.

Auteur
Amara Sage graduated from the Bath Spa MA for Writing for Young People with a distinction and lives in Bristol with her husband and two dogs. She writes contemporary, own-voice YA fiction that explores issues of body image, mental health, racial identity, and the impact that social media has on all of the above.