The dismissive and melodramatic language used to describe the issue not only ignores, but perpetuates, the systemic problems that need to be addressed.

From start to finish you are taken on a journey that continuously questions societal notions and their effect on you. We still had till mid-January to work together and we had even done some jobs together during this remaining 3 month period. Both women are online influencers and feminists, who spread similar messages of body positivity and self love. One article in gal-dem, when considering ‘Instagram feminism’, claims ‘For Chidera to hit Florence with allegations that she’s copied her schtick to sell watered down feminism to the masses brings to mind the meme of the two Spidermans, pointing accusingly at each other’. The final chapter of the book really reaffirmed to me how important it is to reflect upon how far you’ve come and to recognise your achievements.However, Eggurue’s first book, What a Time to be Alone was published in 2018 and is cited in the very first page of Women Don’t Owe You Pretty.

If there was a genre titled ‘books you didn’t know you needed’, this one would be the first one on the list. The plagiarism which Eggerue accuses Given of is just part of the debate to be had here; these ‘responses’ and ‘reactions’ highlight issues of young Black feminist voices being ignored. This is an unsurprising feature as Given is primarily an artist and anyone who has seen her Instagram page will be familiar with her illustration style. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty has occupied a space in the Sunday Times top five for twelve consecutive weeks since its publication.Black authors are exploited enough in the literary space – an industry whose founding fathers owned slaves. The publication of Women Don’t Owe You Pretty has confirmed Florence Given’s authority as a spokesperson for Generation Z and beyond. Whereas men are allowed to simply exist, rarely having to think about how their ‘prettiness’ will affect how respected they are.

Florence Given is complicit in the undermining and silencing of Black voices, but this does not mean she is guilty of definable plagiarism. Given also informs her followers that her book went to her publishers in November 2019, whilst Eggerue’s was released in February 2020. To date, neither Eggerue’s or Florence’s publishers have voiced any concern that there is copyright infringement or plagiarism at play. Florence Given’s management – also Diving Bell – made a brief comment on their Instagram stories concerning the issues and wished Chidera “the best”. The same activists and change makers suddenly won’t address the dumpster fire in their own back garden.

Annotating the screenshots, Chidera said: “For everyone asking why I am only just speaking up now, I already spoke to Floss in June. She explained: “I amicably ended my contract with Diving Bell with a 3 months notice back in October. Alice Porter commented in her article ‘How Instagram made books cool again’ on the aestheticization of books on social media. She made more comments about the disparity between her Instagram story views from the debacle and the support she wanted: “I’m seriously disappointed in every single one of you for choosing to keep quiet through this. Eggergue has highlighted similarities between the content of their books, but she also points to similarities in the books’ covers and styles.