A review by lexistwick
People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I'm rating this book lower than I should - I think because I can't quite shake my skepticism and bias against a "social media" story, although I was delightfully surprised at its insights and effectiveness! I'd like to read more books like this that are at least partially set in the internet - not unlike Patricia Lockwood's No One's Talking About This and just like our lives. Like, it's not just doing odd lip service to the fact that everyone has phones these days; it's engaging the fact that the venue for much of the drama and intimacy of our lives is technology and social media. An aside - I can get annoyed by writers like Ann Patchett, who never incorporates cell phones into her stories (a dead giveaway and consequence of never having owned one) because, I quote, they removed the tension from a story. You'd have to have never owned a cell phone to believe that's true...

So anyway, I really love psychological crime thrillers and stories about marital conflict, and it was very fascinating how this one commented on the present moment. The world it describes is in a way really obvious, it's the world everyone is immersed in when they click into social media. I think we often take for granted that representing our world as it is actually can be quite interesting. I wanted to have a book club discussion on this book; it would work how book clubs used to work! It would provide on ramps to talk about actual issues affecting our lives that we otherwise don't know how to discuss.

I thought it was especially interesting how many different players and villains were on the scene, which struck me as quite realistic. For example, there was almost no reason not to expect that Doreen was the stalker at first, and it even seemed implied. I ultimately took that to be a commentary on the enormity of it all, the anonymity and chaos.
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