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A review by cindypepper
Followers by Megan Angelo
3.0
Don't let the bright cover or the very relevant topic of social media fool you: this one is pretty bleak.
Followers is a dystopic novel. Except instead of knowing exactly what has plunged America into the dystopia that Marlow is living, we don't completely uncover those differences until the very end. The pacing is interesting, in that Orla and Floss' story keeps escalating toward a doomed crash-and-burn of an uncertain "future", and Marlow, decades later, is furiously pacing backward to uncover the mysteries of her past. Which means that, as the reader, we're scrambling to get to the middle of the timeline, aka the real meat of the story, aka The Spill, aka where it all goes horribly wrong. Unlike Fahrenheit 451 or Hunger Games, we're not exactly certain on what exactly Marlow is running from until she has already escaped. 85% of the novel = so what happened in The Spill, anyway?
This narrative structure (whatever the opposite of in medias res is!), though unusual, does seem to work. Or at least, it still held my attention as I shuttled between Floss/Orla and Marlow, eager to cut to the middle.
However compelling the story may be, the main characters (Floss, Orla) were so unlikable that I had kept reading solely to uncover the puzzle pieces. It was hard to reconcile why Floss and Orla were as strong friends as the story suggested; even discounting all the awful shit Floss did, the parasitic nature of their relationship felt icky, such that you could see all the red flags from a mile away. Orla herself isn't exactly a victim, as she knowingly benefits from her relationship with Floss and willfully ignores her own warning signs.
The ending left me partially-satisfied (whelmed? Yeah, let's say whelmed.), in that I was glad Marlow got to find Orla (though, I had cottoned onto the possibility that Orla had some sort of connection to Marlow earlier on), but I couldn't really buy the ending as a reunion of Floss and Orla's "friendship". Even when Floss makes it to Atlantis, her flaws and ugly habits that had poisoned their friendship are still evident: she overstays her welcome, she wills herself not to interrupt Orla and Marlow's reunion but her venom is still well and alive.
Overall, I actually did enjoy reading this. The outrageousness of the plot and development didn't feel eyeroll inducing, but rather tongue-in-cheek, due to the smart and self-aware tone in the narration and refusal to claim a moral high ground. Followers doesn't make any pretensions about the vapidity or the trash fire nature of its own characters. However, the dystopia that Angelo has created doesn't feel prescient or ominous in the way that 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 or even the Hunger Games aimed to communicate about government control and privacy and free speech. Followers doesn't feel like it's trying to make a statement or even tread into political territory (siphoning off Atlantic City as the de facto District 13 of the USA? Right.), but rather, it feels like it's trying to say something about our intrinsic, emotional need for real connection. Hopefully we don't have to wait 35 years to reconcile that need.
Followers is a dystopic novel. Except instead of knowing exactly what has plunged America into the dystopia that Marlow is living, we don't completely uncover those differences until the very end. The pacing is interesting, in that Orla and Floss' story keeps escalating toward a doomed crash-and-burn of an uncertain "future", and Marlow, decades later, is furiously pacing backward to uncover the mysteries of her past. Which means that, as the reader, we're scrambling to get to the middle of the timeline, aka the real meat of the story, aka The Spill, aka where it all goes horribly wrong. Unlike Fahrenheit 451 or Hunger Games, we're not exactly certain on what exactly Marlow is running from until she has already escaped. 85% of the novel = so what happened in The Spill, anyway?
This narrative structure (whatever the opposite of in medias res is!), though unusual, does seem to work. Or at least, it still held my attention as I shuttled between Floss/Orla and Marlow, eager to cut to the middle.
The ending left me partially-satisfied (whelmed? Yeah, let's say whelmed.), in that I was glad Marlow got to find Orla (though, I had cottoned onto the possibility that Orla had some sort of connection to Marlow earlier on), but I couldn't really buy the ending as a reunion of Floss and Orla's "friendship". Even when Floss makes it to Atlantis, her flaws and ugly habits that had poisoned their friendship are still evident: she overstays her welcome, she wills herself not to interrupt Orla and Marlow's reunion but her venom is still well and alive.
Overall, I actually did enjoy reading this. The outrageousness of the plot and development didn't feel eyeroll inducing, but rather tongue-in-cheek, due to the smart and self-aware tone in the narration and refusal to claim a moral high ground. Followers doesn't make any pretensions about the vapidity or the trash fire nature of its own characters. However, the dystopia that Angelo has created doesn't feel prescient or ominous in the way that 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 or even the Hunger Games aimed to communicate about government control and privacy and free speech. Followers doesn't feel like it's trying to make a statement or even tread into political territory (siphoning off Atlantic City as the de facto District 13 of the USA? Right.), but rather, it feels like it's trying to say something about our intrinsic, emotional need for real connection. Hopefully we don't have to wait 35 years to reconcile that need.