This New Novel Explores Being a Teen in the Age of Social Media

Crystal Maldonado’s sophomore novel, No Filter and Other Lies, comes out just as young people and parents alike are grappling with the negative effects social media can have on teens regarding body image and self-esteem. Maldonado’s book (published on February 8) introduces readers to Kat Sanchez, a 16-year-old Puerto Rican girl from California who longs to be a star on Instagram. As she frets over her number of followers and likes, she wonders if the reason her account isn’t taking off is that she is a plus-sized, darker-skinned teen of color. Kat then comes up with a rather unethical solution to this problem — she decides to create a whole new social media persona under the name Max Monroe. The fictional Max is a beautiful and popular college student and, as she takes social media by storm, Kat becomes further snared in the web of deception that she’s created.

We recently had the chance to chat with Maldonado over video chat about her new novel, the allure of social media, and what it is like creating characters that closely mirror one’s own experiences.

Why did you want to create a story about a teen who creates a fake social media profile using images of someone else?

I would say the idea for the character of Kat came out of a couple of things. One is just my personal obsession with social media — I think we’re all a little bit obsessed in some ways. So I wanted to kind of explore the pull of social media through the lens of a teenager and explore how pervasive it feels at that age.

I also wanted to create a problematic character. When you meet Kat, you see right away that she’s flawed. She even tells you upfront that she’s a liar and has all of these things she needs to work on. So I wanted to have this character who was imperfect, but then I would work on redeeming her and seeing what it’s like when you make those mistakes while asking, ‘Can you come out on the other side?’

Readers may be particularly startled by the scene where Kat decides to use someone else’s face as her own, especially when they learn how she got the photos. It’s immediately clear that Kat knows what she is doing is very wrong, but she goes ahead anyway.

I wanted there to be a personal element because it raised the stakes while also making it so much more obvious that what Kat was doing was not OK. I think it also showed just how troubled Kat was feeling about her own body and life. She was just so down and so upset with herself that she said, ‘I understand this is wrong, and I shouldn’t do this. But it gives me all of the good feelings that I really want. So I’m gonna throw caution to the wind.’ We then see her get almost addicted to that euphoria, and then, of course, there is a fall from grace when things inevitably blow up.

Kat’s mother also has a very troubled relationship with social media. It seems to her kids like she is fixated on presenting this image of the perfect family to the world when things are very different in reality.

I wanted to show it’s not just young people who get so swept up in this. It can happen at any age, and that need for social media validation can cause these tensions within families. Here, there’s the reality of what Kat sees every day and how she knows she is not actually having

these nice dinners with her mom — her mom isn’t even attending the dinners most of the time. But she then goes onto Instagram and sees these posts that make it look so different.

I also just started imagining all of Kat’s mom’s friends commenting things like ‘You’re such a good mom,’ and I wanted to explore what that would look like.

In fact, Kat’s mother’s social media posts never acknowledge that Kat’s grandparents are raising her (which the whole family is very secretive about). This book is dedicated in part to your own grandparents. Why did you want to explore that family dynamic in this book?

I was actually raised by my grandparents, so I knew I wanted grandparents to serve as the mother and father figures in this book. Like Kat, I also would sometimes worry about how my family structure didn’t look like that of my peers. I kept wondering what that said about us or what it meant. But I think that I was way more consumed with it than anyone else was. We definitely see that in Kat’s story, too, where a lot of the stresses she feels about telling her friends are internal.

I also just thought it would be really fascinating to explore a nontraditional family because we are seeing more portrayals of people being raised by their grandparents or aunts and uncles, but the main narrative is still a nuclear family of one mom and one dad. I think if you don’t have that, it can really infiltrate the way you view the world and the way you view yourself.

Kat is definitely going through a lot! In addition to navigating her home life and the web of lies that she created, she is also coming to terms with her bisexuality. You recently tweeted that those parts of the book were influenced by your own journey (only you were much older).

Funnily enough, I had Kat grappling with these issues before I had really embraced the term bisexual to describe myself. I just thought, ‘I am writing this, but that’s not quite who I am.’ But I feel like writing this book, and really thinking about how Kat would feel and about some of the interactions she went through, I came out on the other side thinking, ‘Oh, wait, the reason this is so personal is because that is my experience.’ But with Kat, she can only come to terms with her sexuality once she’s got this fake profile and the anonymity it provides.

Your debut novel, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega, was released in paperback earlier this year and was also translated into Spanish for the first time. Charlie is also a plus-sized teen girl who struggles with body image issues. What was your reaction when you learned Charlie’s story would now be available to Spanish-speaking readers?

I feel like it’s beyond my wildest dreams. When I wrote that book, I hoped that maybe one person would read it. I thought, ‘That’s my only goal.’ Seeing that Charlie has a whole other iteration that’s going to reach new people and that it is coming out in different languages is amazing to me. Now people who speak Spanish and who never felt like they got to see themselves in books now have this representation.

As you’ve noted, both of your books feature characters that are very personal to you. What is it like hearing from readers who connect to your characters on a deep level?

I cry so much — in the best way! I love getting messages and just hearing from people in emails or DMs on Instagram who just want to share the connection that they made with the characters. That they feel compelled to reach out and share those personal stories with me is so meaningful. Because, yes, I put a piece of myself into these books. So it feels like we already have this connection, and then they’re taking it a step further by reaching out. It’s incredible.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.