I liked the characters and the technological exploration within this book. I felt that perhaps it wasn't as fast-paced as I would have liked and that the ending felt a bit rushed, but overall I liked the themes explored and the way the characters were written.

If you like Black Mirror, you’ll love Megan Angelo’s debut Followers!

In a world obsessed with fame and following, are there any boundaries to achieving celebrity status?

Lady-ish blogger Orla Cadden finds her job in jeopardy when local celebrity Sage Sterling drops dead at 27, leaving her void of any celebrity content worth writing. Strapped for cash and unable to meet her rent, Orla advertises her spare room on Craigslist and meets Florence Natuzzi, an A-lister wannabe desperate to seek celebrity status.

Destiny? Fate? Whatever you want to call it, these girls must work together for mutual success.

Orla and Florence rebrand Florence as the electrifying Floss, a Kardashian-style influencer who fakes it until she makes it. This newfound confidence and access to social media, along with a little abusing of Orla’s blogging powers, position Floss as the greatest celebrity of 2015, and the nation follow her every move via their reality show. The world is consumed with the internet, social media and influencers until “The Spill”.

“The Spill” is the climax of emotional terrorism in December 2015 whereby hackers infiltrate the power grid and shut down the Internet. Time ceases to exist, and the world goes dark. Phones, computers and TVs are all disabled without warning. Within a few days, the predicament gets worse as digital footprints and private files are torn apart and shared with the world causing husband to turn on wife, brother against sister and friend upon friend. There are mass suicides connecting to this abuse of data breaching and the online connectivity is feared.

Fast forward to the year 2051 and we meet Marlow, a woman famous for being famous. She lives in Constellation, which is an entirely artificial ‘fishbowl’ world established for voyeuristic entertainment. Born during “The Spill”, Marlow has no recollection of the terrible consequences of social media and lives ignorantly unaware of the dark side of social media. There is little to no freewill to ‘protect’ the residents, and the show's producers closely monitor the actions of all residents to prevent them from excessively drinking, making crass decisions or worst of all, attempting to flee the programme. Every action is taken to maximise follower count.
This dystopian era combines the haunting realities of the Stepford Wives and The Truman Show as Marlow is sponsored by a suppressant medication which dulls her version of reality, making her more passive and ultimately, more easily influenced and controlled. That is, for as long as she takes it.

The dual narratives of Orla and Floss in 2015 and Marlow in 2051 are entwined and act as a sinister warning of not only the dangers of social media, but also the ease of forgetting size a seismic event.

Angelo’s harrowing imagining of a civilisation that loses its way is far too believable, and incredibly impressive for a debut.

Suspenseful, thrilling and emotionally-charged, this colourful debut stays with the reader long after the final pages are closed.

Thank you to the team at HarperCollins/HQ Stories for providing me with this manuscript, and I wish you all the best with the publication of this book. This honest review has been supplied at the request of the publisher but all the opinions given are my own

There were some very interesting aspects to this narrative, but ultimately it felt a little repetitive and the ending was very anti-climactic. It tells the story, in dual timelines, of Orla, a 30-something blogger living in New York in 2016, and Marlow, a woman of similar age living in the Truman Show-esque town of Constellation, where the inhabitants are constantly watched and the number of their 'followers' fluctuates with the tides.

The Positives: There was some really interesting commentary about the nature of social media and what it means to be internet famous, which I enjoyed. I found Marlow's story particularly intriguing, as it provided a glimpse into a future that felt very prescient and therefore, pretty disturbing. Floss, Orla, Aston and really, everyone in the 2016 timeline were pretty unpleasant, which I thought the author did really well.

The Negatives: The pacing of the narrative was uneven, which meant that large portions felt quite slow and then the ending all happened in a big rush. There were times when this book felt very long, and I think some of this stems from a feeling of repetitive plotting. Although Angelo is clearly making some very lucid arguments about the nature of celebrity culture, the actual plot was a bit dull.

Overall, this was an interesting book, but there are other books that do both the internet and the dystopia better, for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I read about 20% of this book before DNFing. I just couldn't get into the story, I think because I'm not interested in internet fame which both storylines revolve around. The writing was good and I think this could be enjoyed by the right reader.

This is an excellent book.

The characters - either "now" or "future" are really, really well written. Every single one of them has their own identity and the choices they make follow on nicely from this.

I really liked the time hopping and the way both sides meshed together.

The plot is really where this book comes into its own. It takes the immediacy of social media and influencers and pushes it to a whole new level that I can quite honestly see happening and this is terrifying. There were a few things here and there that I didn't quite get behind 100% but they were few and far between and didn't bring down my enjoyment in the slightest.

Nailed the ending too, which as i was getting towards the end was big worry.

I’m afraid this one was just not for me and I found it hard to keep reading. I liked the premise of the story but found the storyline disjointed and somewhat confusing.

Sadly, I was disappointed by this book. It's got so much content to it - there are two different stories being told from chapter to chapter and one is way, way more interesting than the other- that any sharpness or importance gets lost under the sheer amount of stuff being thrown at you. In the futuristic sections, whilst they were interesting, I found myself rolling my eyes at some of the references that just felt a bit...dumb? For lack for a better word? A story about a woman who spends her life being watched by followers is really exciting, yet it's punctuated by what feels like a whole other novel, of two women trying to survive in modern society. I wanted to like it, but I think it's lost its way.