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| Follow Me by Kathleen Barber |
Follow Me by Kathleen Barber
My rating: 4 stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Publisher: Gallery Books
I tend to enjoy a good story about the dark turns social media can take. And this one fit perfectly. It was creepy, crazy and quite the twisty tale that was just perfect for diversion during quarantine.
The story is related in three POVs, Audrey (the influencer), Cat (attorney and friend of Audrey) and Him (a terrifying stalker incel with Audrey as his focus). Audrey relocates to Washington D.C. for employment at the Hirshhorn as their Social Media Manager and it happens that her good friend Cat lives and works in the city but alas, so does Him. As Audrey shares all the things, He gets all kinds of access he's never had before and no longer has to stalk at a distance. It's no small matter that Audrey's landlord also has a grandson who is a complete creep and then there's Audrey's ex-boyfriend sometime hookup, Nick. Oh and Cat's object of affection, Connor and the attorneys trivia group member, Lon. When I say that like, every male in this book had a very high squick factor, I mean it. There wasn't one I'd want to be around and they all made me cringe. Points to the author for the Him perspectives which made me want to put the book down and shower. The tension escalates with each revelation from Him and as Cat's past come into focus. The crescendo was fairly breathtaking and so to was the end ((view spoiler)).
I'd no favourite lines here but one thing that will remain with me is the horror that Audrey pairs rosé with animal crackers. In a book chock full of horrid decisions and ghastly acts, that was by far the worst. In book-likes, it had elements of Kepnes' You, Araminta Hall's Our Kind of Cruelty and Karen Hamilton's The Perfect Girlfriend.
Recommended.
Summary: Everyone wants new followers…until they follow you home.
Audrey Miller has an enviable new job at the Smithsonian, a body by reformer Pilates, an apartment door with a broken lock, and hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers to bear witness to it all. Having just moved to Washington, DC, Audrey busies herself impressing her new boss, interacting with her online fan base, and staving off a creepy upstairs neighbor with the help of the only two people she knows in town: an ex-boyfriend she can’t stay away from and a sorority sister with a high-powered job and a mysterious past.
But Audrey’s faulty door may be the least of her security concerns. Unbeknownst to her, her move has brought her within striking distance of someone who’s obsessively followed her social media presence for years—from her first WordPress blog to her most recent Instagram Story. No longer content to simply follow her carefully curated life from a distance, he consults the dark web for advice on how to make Audrey his and his alone. In his quest to win her heart, nothing is off-limits—and nothing is private.
Kathleen Barber’s electrifying new thriller will have you scrambling to cover your webcam and digital footprints.
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