Can you name someone "Internet famous?"
I certainly can--having young kids means knowing the significance of the names Ryan, Blippi, Axel and Daddy...the list goes on. YouTube has leveled the playing field in terms of celebrity--you don't have to rely on breaking into Hollywood to become a household name anymore.
But it's not always fun and games.
In Unfollow Me, Charlotte Duckworth has crafted a savvy novel about the fictional consequences of our social media obsessions. And though I grudgingly sit through videos of other people's children opening toys they've been gifted for free advertising, I don't have a lot of time for social media as a whole. So Internet celebs? Meh...
And yet I really liked this book.
Violet Young is a wildly popular social media influencer through her mummy blog and other accounts. But when she suddenly disappears, as well as her entire online footprint, her obsessive fans want to know: did she just have enough oversharing? Or did something worse happen to her...
Let me just get this out of the way: with the exception of minor characters Luke and Simon, I found this book to be full of awful, contemptible people. BUT...in this case, for this book, it absolutely worked for me. Rather than making me want to abandon the book, Duckworth instead elicits emotions to make me keep reading. I *have* to find out what's happened in this crafty whodunit, which is told through multiple POVs, emails, and postings on online message boards.
Unfollow Me explores the consequences of our unhealthy obsession with the facade of online personalities, as well as our own. But it goes deeper than that. Duckworth also lays out complex relationships, motherhood, lies, deceit, and finding a new life after you've completely lost the plot.
I wasn't sure what to expect going into this book. It sounded like a fun thriller, but like I said, I'm no big fan of social media personalities. I was, however, drawn in by the first page and found this compulsively readable and hard to put down. I liked the format, but I did have a hard time differentiating between Lily's and Yvonne's chapters, because they sounded so similar. If I happened to take a break in the middle of a chapter, I often had to reread to remember who was whom. Otherwise, it's a great read that I highly recommend!
I'm really appreciative of NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books (they're putting out a ton of great titles!) for providing this review copy.