You Don’t Know Me
“… one of the best YA contemporary stories I’ve read in years, exploring media manipulation, cyber-bullying, body image, romance, friendship, making choices, and doing it all with incredible heart and a wonderful cast of characters.” The Bookbag
“I absolutely devoured it” Choose YA Books
Shortlisted for the Booktrust’s Best Book Awards, 2014
Sasha, Jodie, Nell and Rose never expected to be famous. They didn’t want to be. In fact, they wanted to keep their band a secret because it’s what they do when they’re being stupid together – dressing up and singing cheesy songs.
But someone has stolen a video they made. It’s online, and it’s been entered into a talent competition. And what’s more … it’s got 24 votes. In only a few hours it’s got 24 votes.
The girls are about to be faced with a big decision that could make them seriously famous.
Just not necessarily the way they hoped …
One day I was sitting with my family, watching a talent show on TV. Except, I realised that we weren’t really watching the show. My husband was, but I was on Twitter, talking about it, and my eldest stepdaughter was on Facebook, talking to her friends about when she was going to watch it because she couldn’t watch it now because she was on Facebook, talking about it. And my younger stepdaughter was doing the same, on Snapchat. One of my sons was playing a video game and the other was on Club Penguin. Between us, we had enough computing power to land on Mars, and we were mostly engaged with people who weren’t in the room with us. It was a normal Saturday night.
And I began to wonder … what would happen if your social world – the online one, which is the most real one to most of us these days – suddenly turned against you? What if all those messages were hateful, not happy? What if … you’d done something terrible on a talent show, and now you were paying for it? How would you cope?
And so You Don’t Know Me was born …
To celebrate its launch in 2013, Chicken House (my publishers) invited the young and very talented singer-songwriter Molly Ross to compose a song based on ‘Breathless’ from the book. Here it is. I love it.
If you want to know more about the book, click here for more reviews, interviews and blog posts about the writing process and some of the issues it covers.
You can read the first chapter here.
And find out what happened when I discovered an alternative-universe abandoned first chapter of the book years later here.
Review highlights:
” … she has gone from strength to strength with her warm, wise and well-plotted comedies about engaging girls trying to juggle fashion, fame and friendship … You Don’t Know Me is her best yet.” Amanda Craig, The Times
“I loved You Don’t Know Me by Sophia Bennett so wholly and entirely” Fluttering Butterflies
“The story is so powerful … I really can’t rave enough about You Don’t Know Me” Readeraptor
“You Don’t Know Me has quickly become one of my favourite UKYA books.” Queen of Contemporary
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