Reviews with content warning for Stalking - A Influencer

I really enjoyed learning about being a mega-Instagrammer, as well as the differences between what we like in the USA vs. the UK. The ending was super creepy but worked.

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iamnita's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

It’s taken me days to figure out WHAT I think about this book, and what I want to say to outsiders going in. Here it is: This book builds up great suspense while taking you on a journey with our momfluencer. Don’t let the fluffy-ness of the first 3/4 lead you to believe this is not a thriller - don’t worry, about 60% through, things will flip, and then the story picks up SIGNIFICANTLY. So much so, I’ll warn you that if you wouldn’t read Verity, don’t read this. It dabbles in horror. But a solid 4 stars.

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irenemarie's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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sarahmarie094's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Emmy makes a living in the way that millions of hopefuls would love to - as a social media influencer posting her super relatable day-to-day life for anyone on the internet to see. Or is it her real life? In actuality, everything on Emmy's MamaBare accounts is perfectly planned months in advance, down to any grammatical errors in her captions. She has a wealth of parenting knowledge on every topic under the sun, which makes her an expert to be trusted in the eyes of many of her devoted followers. What happens when Emmy's advice turns out to be devastatingly wrong? Just how far is she willing to go to make a name for herself?

This fast-paced contemporary read is told from Emmy's perspective, her discouraged-writer-turned-unwilling-"PapaBare" husband Dan's perspective, and the perspective of an unknown individual with a dark motive. It keeps readers guessing until the end when everything gets squared away in the last 50 pages. Or does it?

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leahlovesloslibros's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

When [Instagram influencer] "Instamum" Emmy starts to really make it big on social media, her life starts slowly spiraling out of control. She thinks she has it all figured out: the follower count, the timed posts, the #ads, even the dreaded algorithm. What she doesn't know is that there is one person who is following her a little too closely, slowly plotting her demise, and she will stop at nothing to orchestrate Emmy's fall from social media royalty.

This book is definitely dark and twisty. There were some plot twists that I kind of saw, but a good handful of them I didn't quite figure out. I liked hearing from three individuals' points of view. I didn't really like Emmy's character, although maybe we weren't supposed to? She was a bit too contrived and cringe-y for me, for lack of a better term. I think it's because often I find influencers in real life to be this way, so it just translated over to the book. The authors did a great job of portraying that influencer attitude, though, so props to them. This book makes you really consider the dangers of a constant online presence, which is something that nearly everyone nowadays can relate to.

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charlesmrose's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

Yet another book I cant help but feel was written to coast off of A Simple Favor's popularity; this one felt especially similar in style, contempt for its characters, a mommy blog is a central component, and in fact the characters themselves are practically carbon copies of the dim wit husband and sociopathically narcissistic wife from A Simple Favor! Dan at least gets points for not being a horny jerk like his counterpart in ASF. (This impression was not helped by the fact that I'm pretty sure the same VA did the voice of the husband in ASF as well as Dan. They really have the poor guy typecast as Pretentious British Dolt.)

There is truly nothing to like about anyone in this book. Emmy is a vile bottom feeder with no redeeming qualities. The moments where she proclaimed to love her children felt like bigger twists than the actual twists. I laughed aloud at one point when she said something about being worried about Coco - that's how little I believed her. Dan is just. Nothing. He's a cardboard cutout of a man. There's some weird stuff set up with their daughter's behavioral issues that goes precisely nowhere. This book thought it had a lot to say about influencer culture and perhaps even modern motherhood and rise and grind mindset stuff, but at the end of the day it's a lot of cynical sneering just kind of plopped there. If this were a dish on Chopped, the judges would send the author home for failure to transform the ingredients.

All that being said, I kept reading because I did want to see how it all played out. And the last chapter really delivered for me where the first 80 percent pretty much failed.

I thought that moment when the high schooler running the RP account asked Dan what the difference was between what she was doing and what they were was probably the smartest moment in the book, and then the ambiguous chilling end of Emmy's conscious thoughts! Wow, I thought, that ended up okay.

Then I heard "Epilogue". And I was like, oh okay, a little wrap up! Sure! The pacing seemed weirdly slow for an epilogue, and I checked how much longer I had on the audiobook and saw FIFTY MINUTES left? FIFTY MINUTES??? Maybe this is a nitpick but to me thats not an epilogue. That's a whole new chapter, and a long one at that. And it RUINED the end of the book for me. Absolutely disgraceful. It felt like the author turned in the ending and some higher up at the publisher said "No, you can't leave it like that. Add something else. Whatever. Just something. Too sad." And like all executive level meddling in artistic work, it was badly done. If you feel the need to add in an HOUR of exposition at the end of your thriller or mystery to painstakingly explain what happened to your characters and explain everything away, either you're an idiot or you think I am. And I don't like either option.

Ultimately I'm left feeling like this was just a big waste. Promising elements are left to dangle and everything else is stupidly over explained. The writer seems to have a troublingly harsh contempt not just for influencers (each of Emmy's crew are simultaneously shrewd, sociopathic Patrick Batemans when it comes to milking money + gifts from fans while also being utterly clueless self-absorbed bimbos at the same time) but for people who use Instagram in general. All of Emmy's fans are portrayed as simpering morons who are as easily taken in by influencer scams as toddlers are by peek-a-boo, another aspect that mirrored ASF - an inexplicably strong disgust for a random set of people permeating and, indeed, driving the narrative.

I really hope this is one of the last dregs of the wave of mysteries that are all exactly like this. I truly cannot take it anymore. Nobody learned anything and nothing mattered. You should want to know what happens to the characters and care, even in the negative, about what happens to them. If I'm only reading for the satisfaction of seeing if I guessed the twist - something I could just as easily go to Wikipedia for - you've failed.

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genivieve's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

Really repetitive with the instagram part of emmy and dan’s life.
The revenge plot felt very weak as to why they hated emmy so much.
Not alot of action or incidences to make the book feel tense.
Ending was too easy for me and felt like the characters learnt nothing.

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nicole_zx's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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