Neil Brewster isn't a nice guy. Never has been. This goes way back to his camp councilor days when he used to bully Chris "Stinky" Bateman relentlessly. Now a big time NYC lawyer, let's just say he hasn't really changed much from the days of his youth.

Way back in those long lost summer days Neil hung out with four other guys. They were the popular ones. The ones everyone else looked up to.

Now 18 years later these same friends want to reunite one last time before the camp is torn down. Neil hasn't spoken to any of them since he left camp early that fateful summer. He ignored any contact they ever tried to make with him. Why are they now reaching out by sending him this invitation? What does this weekend have in store for Neil?

This book is very simple and easy to read. It has a YA feel to it throughout though most of it takes place in present time with only flashbacks to the summer in question. Even though they were grown men it still read like they were teenagers. I think teenagers may really dig this but any experienced thriller reader will probably be let down.

I had this entire story figured out from the beginning and it was all just very predictable in the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Edelweiss for granting me digital ARC's in exchange for my honest review.

Definitely kept my attention. Kept me guessing. Could use a little editing. Topic is definitely something going on around the world right now

Overall, a pretty solid read about bullies and the lasting impact bullying can have. I have a hard time sympathizing with a bully or a former bully, but I do think this was well written.

Follow You Down was a great thriller that kept my attention and kept me guessing.
You follow five friends, Neil, Steve, Patrick, Jeremy, Rob all getting together for a long overdue camp reunion. It jumps between the 80's, when the boys were camp counselors for 3 summers, and then into modern time.
Follow You Down is a realistic story on how bullying can affect multiple people, and how it can haunt both the bully and the victim for the rest of their lives.
I cant wait to read something else by Michael Bradley.

Meet Neil Brewster: successful lawyer with a reputation, on track to partner and engaged to a gorgeous woman. Known for his ruthless nature in the courtroom, Neil has always been a bully. Just ask the kids he tormented in his youth.

Follow You Down, by Michael Bradley, follows Neil’s journey as he is confronted by his past sins and is forced to look back when he realizes things were not always as they seem.

When I started Follow You Down, I was hooked right away. I loved Bradley’s narrative voice. It was incredibly easy to be sucked in and I breezed through the first chapters. Once I started, I was compelled to find out what was going to happen. Now, that being said, one of the downsides to this novel was that I was able to guess one of the pretty largest twists very early on. From there, I just felt like this novel became incredibly predictable, incredibly quickly. That doesn’t bother me because I did find Bradley’s style to be so enjoyable but I know that this would be an issue to some readers.

Even with the predictability, I was impressed that Bradley was able to surprise me with the final twist! I appreciated that!

Overall, a quick crime read that I made me feel a bit like summer. It really reminded me of those “teen slasher” movies. Very entertaining and easy to breeze through!

Wow. This book takes you on a roller coaster ride of emotions. Recommended for anyone who enjoys the type of thriller that really keeps them guessing throughout.

I want my time back. Seriously. All of it. This was just.....

It was just inconceivable that everyone went to this much trouble to punish one person for the pranks and bullying he did as a teenager. I mean maybe, just maybe it would have been more believable if the people involved had been innocent of any wrongdoing. But they all terrorized the same guy right along with him. But they are absolved somehow because they apologized later for the result and Neil never did. Uh how was he supposed to apologize for a result he knew nothing about?

And that ending, come on! So we are supposed to believe that these guys went on with their lives with no concern? Not one of them bothered to check on him even from a distance? If he was such a high powered attorney eventually someone would have come out there to find him. There would be a search party. He had a very expensive car which had to have a tracking system! Something. Ugh!

Enjoyable thriller! We follow five teenage friends through periods of their summers spent as camp counselors in the '80s and their current weekend retreat. Now successful adults, they relive the horrid details of their final summer together that resulted in a tragedy.

This is a realistic story of how bullying can impact multiple people and haunt both the victims and the bullies in their future lives. Parts of the story were predictable but the writing was solid.

Thanks to Net Galley and publishers for an advanced readers copy in exchange for this honest review.

Can I start with the cover? That was what drew me in. I thought it was a nice cover and when I read the summary I got curious about how the author would take this book and I have to say it's not my cup of tea.

I like thrillers and suspenses to be enigmatic where it builds up the expectation and keeps dropping clues and little hints for you to get your mind into a frenzy until you get all the answers. With this book it was practically the opposite, every single moment of this book I could see it coming. I'm not sure if the author wanted like that or not but for me it's not pleasant to read something I can plainly see how it's gonna end. So I basically read through the motions and everything I knew it would happen it did happen.

One of the things I liked was the writing style, it was fluid, it was mastered and the author always knew how to draw you into the scene, to that page, to that moment. I was caught up in the drama but I wanted more, I needed more. The whole story could have been different, an approach more mysterious where would make you gasp surprised at the end.

Basically Neil is a big bully who got everything he wanted by making the people around him feel inferior, worthless, scared of him, feeling like the worst pieces of life on Earth. That's it already a hard point in liking the main character because you can't find a single piece of similarity between you and him. For my taste if I don't bond at least a tiny bit if the main character the reading is insufferable because how can you keep reading a mind of a person you hate its guts?! And a bully no less with no remorse at all of all his actions.

Then there's Sammy the female character and her mind going overdrive and black and white was giving me headaches. She needs to figure her stuff out ASAP. Even her pages where boring to go through.

You get to see some old friends from Neil and I can't believe how can somebody be almost twenty years without seeing each other and act like it was just months. I'm not that good at doing this, I don't think I would ever be doing any kind of re-acquaintence with friends I dropped out of the blue or dropped me.

Also another thing you learn is how the person in their past died and why. The book keeps going back and forth with the past and present storyline. I felt so bad reading the pranks and bullying, showing slowly what it can do to a person and transform everything and everyone around.

Ultimately that was what made me dislike this book, it was very few moments where I actually enjoyed the characters. The suspense was good at the beginning before everything started to be crystal clear. The ending was not something I liked it, it left something hanging (pun not intended) for me. But I might be game for another book of the author because I could sense he had a good grip of his own material and what he wanted for his book.

A thrilling psychological story that keeps readers guessing. I normally am not a fan of this genre but this story definitely captured my attention from its beautiful cover to the story. Neil is a jerk, arrogant , self centered and cut throat highly successful attorney and has all the qualities of being dislikable . I never wish to see anything bad happening to the protagonists of the story but Neil really had royally messed up. It all starts with a phone call for a reunion and from there it’s a gripping story of what is in store for Neil and the way the story ended was interesting. This is a fast paced revenge thriller which could definitely be a great plot for Hollywood movie . Totally worth reading it .

They all went their separate ways, the Cinco Amigos. Steve, Rob, Neil, Patrick, and Jeremy were camp counselors as teenagers. They were pretty much inseparable. And always pranksters. But they went a bit too far when it came to Chris. Chris committed suicide the last year of their jobs as counselors. After this, the camp went down hill and was abandoned. Chris’s father was the care tender of the camp and these events took him down hill. After the care tender, Charlie, died his daughter, Sammy, swore revenge on the Cinco Amigos but 4 of them were drowning in their own guilt. Neil was the only one who wasn’t sorry. Neil was also attracted to Sammy. At the scattering of Charlies ashes they, Sammy, Rob, Steve Jeremy, and Patrick, swore to extract their revenge on Neil. Read to see what they did and if Neil is alive or dead. And let me know, please?!

When I started this book I wasn't sure I would be able to get through it. Initially, it seems the author hadn't met an adjective he didn't like He does a great job of describing what an ass Neil is, and that is a great set up for the story.
He is one of the golden boys, one to whom nothing seem to stick. Great education, big deal job, successful career, albeit with a huge sleaze factor. His stress is big when he gets a chance to rendezvous with his old summer camp buddies from high school, He slides into the camp with arrogance and expectations of leadership that he doesn't deserve. At first things seem ok, then they get strange. then really strange. Then really strange.
When the truth of the situation is revealed, he is in big trouble, big big trouble. His self centeredness has cost people unimaginable things, while he blithely went on stepping all over people.
His chickens has come home to roost.
Revenge is always tricky, and this is no different.
As the story goes on, the writing gets much tighter and better.

The end was not what I had expected, surprise is always good.
It would be really fun and interesting for the author to pick this story up after the end. It would be interesting to see how the New York faction deals with Neil, and how the partners in the plan handle the ending.
Makes you think..

Neil Brewster, a New York attorney who is determined to win at all costs, has reluctantly agreed to spend the weekend with four of his childhood friends at the camp where they were counselors eighteen years earlier. Cutting ties with people who couldn’t help his success trajectory was Neil’s style, and he hadn’t been in contact with any of his old friends.

It was a surprise to Neil that he enjoyed the first night at camp. The place looked the same; bunkhouses and the bath house, and the five men began to reminisce about the good old days, the three summers they were camp counselors and the fun they had tormenting Chris Bateman, otherwise known as Stinky, thanks to Neil. After several stories about the things Neil had done to Chris, the others told him that Chris had committed suicide right after Neil left camp for a two week European vacation. The next morning, Neil wakes up under a tree, with a pair or knives and a light blue Camp Tenskwatawa T-shirt hanging above him, with the word KILLER spray painted in red. And that damned red ball cap, just like the one Stinky Bateman used to wear. What does it all mean?

I love thrillers, but this one wasn’t as thrilling as I’d hoped. Neil is a jerk, a prick, rude, arrogant…the list goes on. There was nothing about Neil I liked or could identify with. I also couldn’t relate to the level of revenge that these people were willing to go to. So…it’s a fast read, but not a compelling one.

Holy Wow. I did not want to put this book down once I started it. Neil, a narcissistic New York attorney has a reunion with his four high school friends and his past misdeeds come back to haunt him. An enthralling thriller.

*A copy of this book was provided to me by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

NICK: the hot shot New York lawyer who thinks hes so gift to women thinks its okay to sexually harass his secretary all while planning to marry the daughter of a senior partner in his law firm, so that he can become a partner there. UMMM DOUCHEBAG!! Your already made to hate him from the get-go.

Nick gets invited to this reunion with 4 of his other friends at this summer job campground. During all the catching up , he find out the kid he had bullied killed himself. Let the creepy begin!!

I kept wondering the whole time is there some sort of paranormal element going on here or was that all my mind playing tricks on me. Definately kept me on my toes all the way till the end.

Thank again NetGalley!

An...interesting book.

I don't think I've ever wanted bad things to happen to the main character as much as I did while reading this book. Neil Brewster was a dick, and I did not feel sorry for him. Ever.
Neil was racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, narcissistic, and egotistical, and Bradley did a great job building him up into this disgusting, vile, horrid person as a result, which allowed the reader to not feel guilty about hating him and wanting him dead...or was that just me?
Either way, Neil definitely got what was coming to him.

As far as the surprise element goes, it was fairly clear what was going to happen, and I actually liked that for once. It eliminated the guesswork that usually accompanies books like this one, and this allowed me to focus on what was actually happening and enjoy the story.

As far as an original story goes, I was actually pleasantly surprised.
The vast majority of books in this genre tend to make the main character the victim of some heinous crime or event, and he/she spends the duration of the book either trying to escape or trying to figure out what happened to him/her in the name of justice and/or closure.
Not this one, though.
Follow You Down is the exact opposite; it centers on the main character, a sick and disturbed individual, who is living his life as if he is blameless, only to find that the tables have turned and he is now the victim of a series of very unfortunate events, all of which lead up to a really satisfying ending.

However, the book was not without its flaws.
My first - and biggest - concern with Follow You Down was the writing style. I found it to be VERY elementary, especially the descriptions Bradley used. They were tedious and often crude (namely, the way in which he described the female characters' bodies -- i.e. "voluptuous ass," "fun bags," "pert breasts" -- gross! And it REALLY drove me nuts every time I read the phrase "girl counselor." I mean, honestly? You couldn't have written "female counselors" instead?? Pretty objectifying stuff, if you ask me.)
That being said, it did not escape me that perhaps Bradley used such crass writing in an effort to emphasize just how disgusting a human being Neil was, but it still didn't sit well with me and I could not help but cringe every time it came up. To me, Bradley could have described the female characters in a more tactful way.

My second issue was the loose ends that Bradley left in the story.
(view spoiler)

For these reasons, I could not justify giving it more than 3 stars.
It was an entertaining read, but I doubt I'll ever pick up another book by Bradley in the future.



*A copy of this book was provided to me by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

I've read some amazing thrillers even though its not my genre really, but this book just kept reminding me of why i don't read thrillers. We had no connection, could not relate to the book or its characters at all.

What happened at camp, stayed at camp.


4.5 stars rounded up to 5!

What initially made me interested in this one was the incredible cover. I was lucky enough to receive an advance readers’ copy on NetGalley and it only took me a day to get through this gripping thriller.

I usually struggled with 3rd person narrative, but I didn’t find that to be the case this time around. The story was highly engaging, fast-paced, and kept me turning the pages until I reached the very end.

I knocked off half a star because in all fairness, the twist was quite predictable and I saw it coming from the very beginning of the book, but I still thought the book was a fun, fast read that kept me busy all day.

The ending was a bit of a surprise and I quite enjoyed it. It also really made me think about just how broken these characters really are. But apart from that, I really wondered what makes a bad man deserve a punishment. And who is to decide?

All in all, a fast-paced, chilling thriller that would make an INCREDIBLE film in my opinion, and kept me glued to my seat until I found out the whole story.

Would recommend to: fans of nostalgic slasher movies like Friday the 13th as well as Sleepaway Camp. This reminded me way more of a movie than any book I’ve read, and I think it would make a great film!

It would be an understatement to say there are a lot of thrillers out there. Apparently so much so that anyone thinks they can write one. Even when they shouldn’t. This was a book by an unknown author and sometimes those can be a pleasant surprise, they might try more or come up with something interesting to stand out. Not in this case. This waste of paper was so glaringly bland and (to be generous) mediocre, it offered absolutely nothing new. Bradley’s protagonist is a cartoon of a person, ambitious remorseless New York defense attorney, who’s gets taught a lesson of a lifetime while on a camp mate reunion. Apparently no one told the author that it’s near impossible to care about a book when the main character is impossible to care about. Near…because occasionally there are exceptions, but this book isn’t clever enough or fun enough to provide any. Instead it proceeds flatly and blandly implementing every cliché along the way, but shabbily so. The plot twists can be seen a mile away, literally from the first chapters. The surprises are tired, predictable and convoluted. The entire thing is about as exciting as a slow moving traffic. Completely disappointing, despite some promising reviews. In fact, this one was so frustrating because of its insistence on being so blah. The ability to put sentences in a row along the lines of an insipid unoriginal plot doesn’t make a book, at least not one worth reading. Being a completist sometimes results in having to plow through some doozies, this one was just an irredeemable waste of time. At least it didn’t take too long to get through. Thanks Netgalley.

I guess this is an okay book but unfortunately didn't work for me. The writing was nothing special and the story didn't hook me. Maybe it was the fact that I find the protagonist really irritating that put me off from the plot, however I ended up not finishing.