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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interesting dystopian story about social media culture and its afterlives, centering on a friendship between Floss and Orla, and a different woman named Marlow living in a future. I really enjoyed reading and not knowing where the story would take me! Ultimately the critique of technology was hollow (screens=bad, privacy=good) but it was certainly a fun ride.
I liked the world-building in the beginning of the book, but I felt that the exploration of the outside world post-Spill(especially Atlantis and the "fog") felt hollow. The arc of the characters was not quite believable to me, with an ending that seemed abrupt and too neat.
Small gripe: I left feeling like I didn't know what any of the characters actually looked like, which was weird, except for that present-day Floss is fat, which is supposedly an important reflection of her inner character. The book harped on that way too much, unnecessarily fat-phobic. It also was a little heavy-handed with the Trump-like president figure.
I liked the world-building in the beginning of the book, but I felt that the exploration of the outside world post-Spill
Small gripe: I left feeling like I didn't know what any of the characters actually looked like, which was weird, except for that present-day Floss is fat, which is supposedly an important reflection of her inner character. The book harped on that way too much, unnecessarily fat-phobic. It also was a little heavy-handed with the Trump-like president figure.
this book destroyed me 10/10 five stars. I got this book as a gift from my mom and at first I thought it would be super cliche and just her way of telling me to use my phone less lol. But it was so, so good.
I can't even put into words how fantastic this book is. Megan Angelo has such a good grasp of language, sarcastic humor, and detail that just drives her message so well. Every line of this book feels so intentional and it's a treat to see the story progress. Marlow's side of the story especially absolutely haunts me because of how real it feels--in the age of streamers and reality TV stars, a world like Constellation where lives are recorded and scripted almost 24/7 doesn't seem too far off, which is terrifying!!! This book just sticks to you in a way that haunts you for a long time (which is a compliment!). If Marlow's story terrifies me, Orla's side of the story is the one that rips out your heart and cuts it into a million pieces and then sells those pieces to butcher shops around the world that then continue to cut it into a million more pieces (which is again a compliment!). Specifically the way her parents react to their daughter's decisions and the climax of the conflict at the end of the book.... It changed me.... (sob) The whole book has its funny moments, but it's written with this sort of detached pragmatism (like "this is just how the world is") that foreshadows the catastrophe that's brewing in the climax of the book SO well. This book will leave you reflecting for a LONG time. This review probably made 0 sense but PLEASE just read this book.
I can't even put into words how fantastic this book is. Megan Angelo has such a good grasp of language, sarcastic humor, and detail that just drives her message so well. Every line of this book feels so intentional and it's a treat to see the story progress. Marlow's side of the story especially absolutely haunts me because of how real it feels--in the age of streamers and reality TV stars, a world like Constellation where lives are recorded and scripted almost 24/7 doesn't seem too far off, which is terrifying!!! This book just sticks to you in a way that haunts you for a long time (which is a compliment!). If Marlow's story terrifies me, Orla's side of the story is the one that rips out your heart and cuts it into a million pieces and then sells those pieces to butcher shops around the world that then continue to cut it into a million more pieces (which is again a compliment!). Specifically the way her parents react to their daughter's decisions and the climax of the conflict at the end of the book.... It changed me.... (sob) The whole book has its funny moments, but it's written with this sort of detached pragmatism (like "this is just how the world is") that foreshadows the catastrophe that's brewing in the climax of the book SO well. This book will leave you reflecting for a LONG time. This review probably made 0 sense but PLEASE just read this book.
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The beginning was slow, but as I read further I was glad I did. The middle was great, and I found myself loving it. Until the end. When nothing happened. Very anticlimactic.
One of those books where things just happen to the characters, not that the characters attempt to do anything.
Followers is not about social media. Followers is about relationships. Followers by Meghan Angelo is about three women and their connectedness. It goes back-and-forth between the time before the spill and the time after. Floss is A girl who wants to be famous for the sake of being famous, think Kardashian famous. Orla is a blogger who just lost the one person she covers for Lady-ish, a gossip site. They have been so wrapped up in their world that they didn’t realize they live together. And they didn’t realize how they could help each other. Marlow’s timeline happens 30 years after. She grew up in a town where being an influencer was a government job. Streaming your life 24-7, and a network that told you what to eat, what to wear and when to have a baby.
One of the most intriguing things about this book is that it fools you into thinking that it is a commentary on our current Instagram obsessed society. It’s not about that as much as it’s about what that society does to us, affecting our treatment of others. There were no clear villains, just people who sometimes do bad things. That made it all the more relatable.
This book is firmly in women’s fiction but at times, it attempted suspense, intrigue and complex world-building that fell flat for me. As much as I enjoyed the relationships, the women’s voices were not diverse amongst themselves for me to tell the difference when I picked up the book at random. The thoughts they were having were different but the writing style was much the same. I think this book suffers a similar fate as Vox which is also had a great premise but the execution was poor. Usually, it doesn’t take me a week to read a 400-page book and this book I started two weeks ago and just finished.
The world-building of society after the Spill made little sense to me. The fallout was realistic but Constellation was just LA but with cameras everywhere. I didn’t know what the purpose of it and it wasn’t explained well. Some portions of the technology were extremely convenient. The primary issue with speculative fiction is that it needs to be a natural progression of human behavior that leads to the “after”. The after was interesting but felt primarily disjointed. I enjoyed Orla’s chapters far more than Marlow’s because it was almost painful to see her realize how sheltered she really was. Because Marlow was older, it felt unrealistic.
The diversity seemed like it was shoved in there, but even then they were European, which made no sense because of the places this story takes place in. New York and Atlantic City. It’s almost like this new world doesn’t have any people who don’t look like the author.
As much as I wanted to like this book, I just didn’t. It didn’t keep my attention and the faux-epilogue in the future tense was just an attempt to be different. There are quite a few books coming out in Winter 2019/2020 that deal with the same subject matter that are a little more interesting.
One of the most intriguing things about this book is that it fools you into thinking that it is a commentary on our current Instagram obsessed society. It’s not about that as much as it’s about what that society does to us, affecting our treatment of others. There were no clear villains, just people who sometimes do bad things. That made it all the more relatable.
This book is firmly in women’s fiction but at times, it attempted suspense, intrigue and complex world-building that fell flat for me. As much as I enjoyed the relationships, the women’s voices were not diverse amongst themselves for me to tell the difference when I picked up the book at random. The thoughts they were having were different but the writing style was much the same. I think this book suffers a similar fate as Vox which is also had a great premise but the execution was poor. Usually, it doesn’t take me a week to read a 400-page book and this book I started two weeks ago and just finished.
The world-building of society after the Spill made little sense to me. The fallout was realistic but Constellation was just LA but with cameras everywhere. I didn’t know what the purpose of it and it wasn’t explained well. Some portions of the technology were extremely convenient. The primary issue with speculative fiction is that it needs to be a natural progression of human behavior that leads to the “after”. The after was interesting but felt primarily disjointed. I enjoyed Orla’s chapters far more than Marlow’s because it was almost painful to see her realize how sheltered she really was. Because Marlow was older, it felt unrealistic.
The diversity seemed like it was shoved in there, but even then they were European, which made no sense because of the places this story takes place in. New York and Atlantic City. It’s almost like this new world doesn’t have any people who don’t look like the author.
As much as I wanted to like this book, I just didn’t. It didn’t keep my attention and the faux-epilogue in the future tense was just an attempt to be different. There are quite a few books coming out in Winter 2019/2020 that deal with the same subject matter that are a little more interesting.
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Classifying this book as science fiction doesn't feel quite right, though parts of it do take place in the future. But if you're expecting pure science fiction, I'm not sure this book is entirely going to deliver. To me, it feels like more of a satire, and a really well done one at that, that blends some scifi into its story. It's a difficult book to discuss without giving away many of its secrets, so there will be some spoilers in this review, though I'll try to keep them to a minimum because I'd much prefer readers discover the book's plot nuances from the book itself rather than from me.
All in all, this is easily one of the best books I've read this year, and that's because this book is not only so well written, but also because it's made me think about some pretty profound things. I realize the irony in sharing my thoughts on this book on the very platforms the book is prodding readers to think about, but there it is for you. Even as the book is dissecting our internet-obsessed culture, particularly with regard to internet celebrities, the best way for me to spread the word about it and hopefully get people reading it is by talking about it online.
Part of what makes this book a five-star read for me is I felt the author really gets people. The characters in this book are all so vivid, even the tertiary ones, and they are all painted in many, many shades. As Floss, one of the main characters likes to put it, it's all in the edit. None of these people are outright heroic or villainous. All of them are driven by baser needs and desires at some points, and that's precisely what makes them seem so human. Never once did I question why Floss was doing what she did, or why Orla was, or why Marlow was, because their actions made sense within the context of what I knew about them. Further, I was thrilled by this depiction of female characters in books, which is still all-too rare. It was beyond refreshing to read something that didn't seem worried about making anyone "likable", and what's interesting about that is it made me like these characters, sometimes despite myself. I could identify with what they were going through and what they were doing. That doesn't mean I'd want some of them in my own life, but I really appreciated how this book emphasized the interiority of these characters and used that to drive its action.
The other thing I wholly admired about this book is the way it lampooned our cultural moment without being mean or petty about it. Instead, the book points out why our dependence on and trust of social media, cloud services, etc is something that should concern us more than it does. Americans take our privacy for granted, and we're prone to believing the promises these corporations feed us, even when the curtain is pulled back and we see what's really going on behind the scenes. These book made me think a lot about data privacy and the implications and consequences of trusting my data to private companies. I'm already of a mindset that the 1984 scenario Orwell envisioned is already upon us, only in the U.S. and many other parts of the world it's not so much the government that's spying on us, it's private corporations. This book interrogates the complacency with which most Americans go about their day, all while our every action is being data-mined and monetized.
While the book is doing this, it's taking a hard look at the ways in which people have not only given up their privacy but have almost come to view privacy as a bad thing, hence the rise of the internet celebrity. Yes, celebrities have always had aspects of their private lives spilled out into the public realm, and those private lives have often influenced how much or little celebrity those people would ultimately possess, but the whole concept of being famous solely for being famous feels like a newer phenomenon. Angelo poses some interesting questions about internet celebrity and what it means. Without ever feeling preachy, the book made me think a lot about what the effect of internet celebrity has on our culture, and just how far we, as consumers, will implicitly encourage internet celebrities to go in order for them to secure our interest. As Angelo points out, the social media companies' choice of the word "followers" is interesting. Reading this book made me think a lot about what it means to both be a follower and to have followers.
Yet all of this is done in a very approachable way. I found this book such a stunner precisely because it's written in casual and unadorned prose that is also engaging and gripping. It's as well written as it is precisely because it's so clever at using language. I feel like saying the prose isn't all ginned up is vaguely insulting to the novel when that's not what I mean at all. Much like when I read Jane Austen's books, I was very impressed by how much Angelo could achieve without striving for fancier or more embroidered language. She doesn't need to write incomprehensible sentences sagging with the weight of multi-syllabic words of the type usually only found in SAT tests because the points she's making are so smart and spot-on. In other words, she doesn't need to use fancy language because her book has a lot to say. Sure, elaborate prose works well for some authors, but I often find elaborate prose is also used to cover up the fact that a book has precious little to say.
I have no doubt I'll still be chewing over this book long after finishing it. I read a vast number of books each year, and after a while the details fade. I usually do remember vague things about the books, but I know this is one of the few whose details I'm not likely to forget, one of those I try to press into the hands of every reader I know. It's not often that I come across a book that is both compulsively readable while also full of deep, provocative thoughts, but this book is one. I look very much forward to what Angelo does next--yep, count me as one of her followers.
All in all, this is easily one of the best books I've read this year, and that's because this book is not only so well written, but also because it's made me think about some pretty profound things. I realize the irony in sharing my thoughts on this book on the very platforms the book is prodding readers to think about, but there it is for you. Even as the book is dissecting our internet-obsessed culture, particularly with regard to internet celebrities, the best way for me to spread the word about it and hopefully get people reading it is by talking about it online.
Part of what makes this book a five-star read for me is I felt the author really gets people. The characters in this book are all so vivid, even the tertiary ones, and they are all painted in many, many shades. As Floss, one of the main characters likes to put it, it's all in the edit. None of these people are outright heroic or villainous. All of them are driven by baser needs and desires at some points, and that's precisely what makes them seem so human. Never once did I question why Floss was doing what she did, or why Orla was, or why Marlow was, because their actions made sense within the context of what I knew about them. Further, I was thrilled by this depiction of female characters in books, which is still all-too rare. It was beyond refreshing to read something that didn't seem worried about making anyone "likable", and what's interesting about that is it made me like these characters, sometimes despite myself. I could identify with what they were going through and what they were doing. That doesn't mean I'd want some of them in my own life, but I really appreciated how this book emphasized the interiority of these characters and used that to drive its action.
The other thing I wholly admired about this book is the way it lampooned our cultural moment without being mean or petty about it. Instead, the book points out why our dependence on and trust of social media, cloud services, etc is something that should concern us more than it does. Americans take our privacy for granted, and we're prone to believing the promises these corporations feed us, even when the curtain is pulled back and we see what's really going on behind the scenes. These book made me think a lot about data privacy and the implications and consequences of trusting my data to private companies. I'm already of a mindset that the 1984 scenario Orwell envisioned is already upon us, only in the U.S. and many other parts of the world it's not so much the government that's spying on us, it's private corporations. This book interrogates the complacency with which most Americans go about their day, all while our every action is being data-mined and monetized.
While the book is doing this, it's taking a hard look at the ways in which people have not only given up their privacy but have almost come to view privacy as a bad thing, hence the rise of the internet celebrity. Yes, celebrities have always had aspects of their private lives spilled out into the public realm, and those private lives have often influenced how much or little celebrity those people would ultimately possess, but the whole concept of being famous solely for being famous feels like a newer phenomenon. Angelo poses some interesting questions about internet celebrity and what it means. Without ever feeling preachy, the book made me think a lot about what the effect of internet celebrity has on our culture, and just how far we, as consumers, will implicitly encourage internet celebrities to go in order for them to secure our interest. As Angelo points out, the social media companies' choice of the word "followers" is interesting. Reading this book made me think a lot about what it means to both be a follower and to have followers.
Yet all of this is done in a very approachable way. I found this book such a stunner precisely because it's written in casual and unadorned prose that is also engaging and gripping. It's as well written as it is precisely because it's so clever at using language. I feel like saying the prose isn't all ginned up is vaguely insulting to the novel when that's not what I mean at all. Much like when I read Jane Austen's books, I was very impressed by how much Angelo could achieve without striving for fancier or more embroidered language. She doesn't need to write incomprehensible sentences sagging with the weight of multi-syllabic words of the type usually only found in SAT tests because the points she's making are so smart and spot-on. In other words, she doesn't need to use fancy language because her book has a lot to say. Sure, elaborate prose works well for some authors, but I often find elaborate prose is also used to cover up the fact that a book has precious little to say.
I have no doubt I'll still be chewing over this book long after finishing it. I read a vast number of books each year, and after a while the details fade. I usually do remember vague things about the books, but I know this is one of the few whose details I'm not likely to forget, one of those I try to press into the hands of every reader I know. It's not often that I come across a book that is both compulsively readable while also full of deep, provocative thoughts, but this book is one. I look very much forward to what Angelo does next--yep, count me as one of her followers.
challenging
hopeful
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The world building and plot were very well thought out but I didn’t feel connected to these characters. Interesting premise too but I did grow bored in some spots.