As said before, I hate to give negative reviews but Im really trying to get more approvals for Netgalley. I'll leave this short. For one, I usually am not a fan of long chapters but I'm not the author and this is their choice so who am I to say anything? But really? Two chapters in an entire book? That's a little too much, or too little I should say. Also, this had such a promising start but just fell flat for me. I am usually sticking up for the book when someone says that it's too far fetched because it's a book, it's supposed to be a story, not real. It's for our entertainment. Without giving spoilers I'll just say that when the book is about someone who's media obsessed but lacks common sense as to simply doing a Google search, I'm baffled and just disappointed. I apologize, maybe some will love this one but it's just not for me.

Extremely sad cautionary tale of modeling. Mickey is a 19 year old aspiring model with some serious self destructive habits. While waiting for her big break she regularly abuses drugs and starves herself for days to the point of passing out. As if her self abuse isn’t enough she hooks up with a famous photographer who makes her problems so much worse. Stirring portrait of abuse, mental illness, and the all consuming world of social media addiction. Fast paced and difficult to put down.

Great quick read thriller. Listened and read and enjoyed the characters and plot. Kept me guessing til the end! Definitely recommend for any twisty story lover! Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

It took me a little while to get into this book but once I was into it I was completely hooked. It's really lovely and feel good as well as heartbreaking.

I feel like the reviews so far have been overly harsh here, I actually found the book to be rather well written, priming with sharp, cogent insights on what it means to be a young woman in the social media age of insta-fame.

“Building your personal brand means getting people to want or admire you so they’ll give you things, whether that means impressing someone at a job interview or making good grades to get a scholarship or fucking a photographer and a dude in a cowboy hat because it gives you a better shot at booking a lucrative campaign. It’s all the same, it’s just about knowing what to capitalise on.”

I will say, it did sometimes feel like it was trying to pack in a little too many pop culture references all at once, the Britney references towards the end being just a little too much. The toughest thing about this book is how dense it is whilst not much is going on, in general, the first half is a rather meandering, slow burn, with things only picking up about halfway through. But if you liked Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘My Year of Rest and Relaxation’ you might be into this too. Although I’m still left wondering what the takeaway message of the book is meant to be.

This book sticks with you for a bit after you are done. I will say that at the start I was not sure I was going to stick it out. It was more the tempo of the story than the story itself. It took me a few chapters to get into it fully.

What a knockout of a debut book.

This is more of a statement and a criticism of the current status of social media and pop culture rather than trying to make a statement. Many other reviews complain about the "woke" narrative, and that completely misses the point of the entire book.

This is a brilliant study in the vapid and arrogant attitude of so many in today's world. The "young people" of today who choose to say what they feel they must say without thinking if it's really how they feel or if it's what they truly believe. It's much like reading the book and expecting the "point" to be told to you from the get....that's not the point of books or reading...AT ALL. That's not critical thinking.

Maybe I'm old, I mean, I AM old enough to be the mother of the characters in this book, but I also know that I read enough and have lived enough to know how to critically analyze something. I know when something is making a real statement and when something is just trying to be controversial. This is a work of a talented writer that I hope continues to write thoughtful work that stirs up discussion and conversation.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Like Me is a darkly observant read with, honestly, a hugely unlikeable main character at the heart of it. There's a point in it that is hard to grasp at times - it is a deeply disturbing narrative for sure, I would hesitate to call it a psychological thriller though, I think that description raises certain expectations from readers that this story won't fulfill.

It is a realistic and sad look at the social media age - the desperate chase for Instagram likes and validation from strangers, the world of influencers is hit with a sharp and unrelenting spotlight.

Our main character Mickey would do anything, often does, in order to capture that elusive fame and fortune, to follow in the footsteps of her "heroine" who she stalks online and in life with obsessive and ever more desperate intent.

Her chance to do so leads her down a twisted and painful path towards destruction.

Like Me is a novel of one girl and her descent from reality. It is a story of skewed body image and self worth, of pressure to perform and be the thing that people are drawn to. It is massively sad and to my mind brilliantly done.

Won't be for everyone. A marmite book I think but one that should probably be widely read.

Thank you NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing, and Hayley Phelan for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! This was definitely a page-turner and shocked me with it’s honesty towards social media and the modeling industry. I’ve seen a lot of negative reviews for this one, but I really enjoyed it, and found it to be surprisingly relevant in today’s world.

Mickey, our narrator, is an aspiring model in New York City. She’s been obsessed with another model on social media, Gemma Anton, and tries to be more like her in order to gain more likes and follows. Mickey and Gemma look similar, so she focuses on her because she’s a lot like her, but more popular.

I liked that Mickey was an unreliable narrator throughout and that the ending doesn’t tell you what really happened. I have a few guesses, but I really don’t know the truth about the novel and what was going on, but I think that makes it more interesting. I enjoyed the epilogue and how Mickey found more happiness after she starts focusing less on social media.

My main complaint with this book is I feel like some parts could have been cut out of shortened because they were a bit unnecessary. However, it was well written, and addresses many issues facing the world today with the rise of social media.

I found this book a really quick and gripping read. It was such an interesting idea, as lets face it we all have social media and we all follow influencers of some kind, who for whatever reason may not have the life they like to reflect on their social media - but does that stop us thinking they have the perfect life or that we would like to be i their shoes for a small amount of time. I know I have - would I have taken it to the extremes that Mickey did though - thats a hard no.
I liked the stoeyline because it was real, the reality is that there are people like this in the world who have money and feel like they are entitled and treat people like they are less than them, however, although real this made Mickey really unlikeable, which was kind of the point but I really disliked her.
As someone who spends a lot of time watching influencers on platforms such as youtube and so forth this really resonated with me and I found it to be an enjoyable read.

Wow! That was a wild ride. I like how it was steady from start to end. I was not expecting that ending. There were parts of the story that I was not expecting to happen.

This book had an interesting premise, what social media and the need to be followed and liked does to us. Mickey is a young aspiring model, aspiring influencer, once rich until her Dad got caught in major fraud, white pretty very entitled, makes her way using alcohol, drugs, men and aspiring to be this other influencer. She was very unlikeable for most of the book and watching her deal with her emptiness/desperation in all the wrong ways.
There was some growth and some reckoning at the end but also a new form of entitlement.

This was a quick and disappointing read. I was so excited to pick this up however, I found myself bored and disappointed. The premise had so much potential. I found the characters annoying and didn’t connect with the story. I wanted to love this so bad 😭

Mickey is a 19 year old aspiring model lost in the world of social media, primarily Instagram. After she hits rock bottom, she descends even deeper down the rabbit hole and becomes obsessed with insta-model Gemma Anton. Gemma has a strong media following, super famous boyfriend, and a booming career. She is everything that Mickey aspires to be and has the life she’s always dreamed of. Mickey pretty much stalks Gemma’s social media soaking in every last post.

When she magically spots Gemma out at a club one evening, the interaction yields a surprising outcome. Mickey is thrown into Gemma’s world but as her social media persona consumes her she finds it impossible to separate the Insta-world from reality.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review.