Suck It In and Smile

At 26, Ellie seems to have it made. Her videos of exercise routines and high-protein, low carb recipes have turned her into an influencer (@Ellie_Quinoa_Forever) and inspired hundreds of thousands of followers to change their lives. Yet Ellie worries that her life isn’t as perfect as she makes it look.

Everything in Ellie’s day is public, from her relationship with heart-throb singer Samuel Vanasse to her restaurant lunches with her sister. Driven by “likes” and comments, Ellie obsesses about her weight and finds herself attracted to another man. As her agent pushes her to collaborate with another “content creator”, an old classmate from Ellie’s dark, unhappy adolescence, she begins to question whether she is living a life she really wants.

Originally published in French, Suck It In And Smile is an entertaining and sometimes disturbing portrait of a very modern young woman. Author Laurence Beaudoin-Masse states openly that her goal is to help girls who never feel they measure up, and many girls will see themselves in the insecure Ellie, caught up in a dream life that isn’t hers.

Told in a variety of genres, including first person narrative, YouTuber lists, Instagram feeds, Facebook exchanges and text messages, the story reflects the way many young people communicate. Their multi-media universe is filled with the constant awareness of an audience. The growing contrast between Ellie’s inner voice and her public persona as presented online clearly shows the reader Ellie’s increasing alienation from the person she pretends to be.

Ellie accepts that she has no privacy; she measures herself and is measured by views, likes, and comments. Her life is completely exposed to online judgement, and a misstep could mean disaster. Eating poutine with her sister in public nearly torpedoes her career as well as her relationship.

While Ellie’s online persona is confident and positive, her private voice reveals her insecurity, both now and as a teen. Her parents and her peers judged her as a child for being overweight, and she finds acceptance only when she gets thin. “Losing weight was my personal mission…. I understood that to be thin was to achieve something important. Something essential. That being beautiful was the basis of everything.” (pp. 66-7).

Ellie’s complicated relationship with her famous boyfriend, Sam, shows another way her online world twists her real life. Theirs is a symbiotic relationship, building their audiences with their couples posts on YouTube, getting likes and comments, inching up the influencer scale. Ellie’s agent is excited by the increased attention, and Ellie convinces herself she’s happy with Sam. But her insecurity emerges when she realizes he’s “on” only in front of the camera; his affectionate gestures are created for an audience, not for her. Sam is never available when Ellie needs his support with family or events, and his silence while he’s on tour raises suspicions. In contrast, Ellie is able to relax with David, who is not famous but is a positive character, supportive, personal, and humorous. David clearly likes Ellie for herself, and, against her will, she clearly returns his feelings.

As matters come to a head at a concocted filming of a fake family “vegan” Christmas at Sam and Ellie’s apartment, Ellie realizes her whole life is a lie. But her attempts to start being more authentic are hijacked by a cliff-hanger ending that begs a sequel (already published in French, hopefully in the works in English).

Many young people follow Instagram or YouTube “content creators,” dreaming of a career being beautiful, famous and admired. In Suck It In and Smile, Beaudoin-Masse shows the ephemeral nature of online fame and the stresses associated with presenting and maintaining a persona that isn’t real. An amusing and heartfelt read, the novel will open the eyes of many and may help them accept who they really are.