I thought that the premise of this book was fun, in a guilty pleasure sort of way.

I found the multiple POVs confusing, and the twists too predictable for my taste however. For these reasons it just couldn’t keep my attention, and I DNF’d this book about half way through.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martins Press for providing me with an ARC of this book to read and review.

People to Follow was a fun/entertaining read, but I had higher hopes for the character development. There were quite a few characters and not enough to differentiate in terms of character voice for me. I think my biggest issue was that there were too many characters to keep track of and I couldn't remember who was who. I think that this book could be a great hit for many people, but it just wasn't my cup of tea

This book is the perfect fix for when you want a classic teen slasher movie, it’s in that sweet spot of having a great plot with enough of a tribute to the classic formula to be satisfying.

Ten young influencers in their late teens/early 20s arrive at a luxurious private island in the Bahamas, ready to film “IRL” a reality TV show in the style of Big Brother, where they live in a house together with no connection to the outside world, filmed 24/7. Their production liaison tells them the crew was delayed due to a storm and will be in the next morning. But upon waking, the group finds that they are alone on the island - and that their emergency communication system is gone. With only messages from their mysterious “Sponsor” as a means of connection with anyone off the island, they begin to freak out. Then the bodies begin to pile up…..

So yeah, this book was a really fun “locked room” mystery that had some nice twists. I thought I knew what was going on a couple of times, but my guesses were wrong. Which was actually pretty fun, because I enjoyed getting to see the other twists thrown in there, making me readjust my frame of reference. And when I finally got to the end, I was really satisfied with the overall result. It was the perfect tone and level of creepiness for the book. You couldn’t really have a “happily ever after” ending for a book like this, it wouldn’t fit.

There were a couple frustrations with the main characters acting, well, as teenagers, but hey, that’s par for the course. Like when someone in a horror movie decides it’s a good idea to go into the basement alone.

Overall, I had a great time with this book, and would definitely recommend it to horror/thriller fans. It was a great escape for a little while for a horror fan like myself.

I'm fascinated by influencer culture and love a good twisty thriller so i was very excited to read this one! The voice jumped off the page and into my brain right from the start and I loved the twists and turns of the mystery as the narrative uncovered the killer's identity. The remote setting added the perfect dash of atmosphere and the quick pacing kept me on the edge of my seat.

The perfect thriller for readers obsessed with influencer culture! It was fun to think of the real-life influencers that could have inspired each character. Constantly left you guessing who you could trust, and how the story would continue to change in order for each character to get themselves ahead.

I love a locked-room mystery, and a secluded island is just as fun! Olivia Worley's "People to Follow" is a thrilling book full of revealed secrets and looming danger. This was one of the few unputdownable books I've read this year, and I repeatedly found myself sneaking away to read more - it's that engaging!

The New Mother by Nora Murphy is an eye-opening domestic thriller that explores postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, and the inherent vulnerability of new mothers.

When you have unsupervised teenagers who live life with money, influence and bring them to a private island for a Big Brother type of "unplugging" where they're in a house with alcohol and little supervision (in the name of reality TV), and you've got a recipe for kids behaving badly and know drama is bound to ensue! Worley delivered a story that had a lot of characters that kept you guessing what was going to happen next and what everyone's secret is. Influencers seems to be a popular topic over the last few months. As much as I like a "behind the scenes" look at a something as intriguing as influencers, once you've read a few, it feels like you've read them all. I read this on the heals of a similar book with adult women instead of kids and that did influence my overall feelings of this book. People to Follow was a fun read, it did pick up and got faster paced closer to the end, but I think I'm a little burnt out on the influencer plot lines so this one fell a little short for me, but I think would be a really good read for others!

People to Follow by Olivia Worley is a debut And-Then-There-were-None-style murder mystery for the influencer age. A group of young influencers, including an Instagram fitness guru scarred by her child dance star fame, a documentarian nepo baby, a rags-to-riches beauty queen, a washed-up former child star, a Twitch streamer, and a group of lifestyle jockeys, meet at an island mansion, a la "The Real World," allegedly to participate in a reality show where they will see what happens when wifi is taken away and people get real. Naturally, it all takes a nasty turn and the miniature stars are first stranded, then their secrets are exposed to the world one by one, and the unlucky targets start getting picked off in varous ways. In other words, just my type of book.

Having only peripheral understanding of this culture, I nonetheless appreciated Worley's thorough knowledge of it, evidenced by a proficient blending of real social media outlets with invented Tik-Tok houses and video games. I'm not the target audience (new adults/Millennials), but I bought into the world, and the totally believable reality show, "IRL", that was the foil for the villain's #cancelling campaign. I enjoyed the deviations Worley took from the traditional structure (I'll not spoil what I mean) in a subgenre currently oversaturated (see: Glass Onion films; the novel Hide; Agatha Christie retellings).

More than that, Worley's ability to convincingly shift between first-person perspectives and for the most part, keep their voices distinct, is on point. The book is a joyride, strictly: while it critiques current online cuture, it doesn't really have anything new to say, and it's (fortunately) not trying to. Rather, that Worley archives in her debut thriller what she seemingly set out to do - entertain and amuse (it's also sharply funny) - suggests she will enjoy a delighted & loyal following.

I received a free digital ARC from Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks Netgalley for the chance to review.
Ten influencers are stuck on a deserted island under the guise of being filmed for a reality TV show about "unplugging", but a dead body forces you to ask the question 'who amongst us is a murderer"

Told from multiple POVS (luckily not all), this story is a bit all over the place and difficult to follow. I struggled to differentiate the voices of the characters or feel drawn to them, which makes the switching pretty difficult. You want, and need, the characters to stand on their own this way: and they just don't. I understand the point was to make them insufferable influencers...but the author may have hit it to on the nose and left out redeeming qualities.

I just didn't love this. I DO love YA from time to time, this just wasn't it for me.

I found this book to be a bit addictive! This is a strong debut and really did a great job making the twists make sense. I found the premise to be really fun, but wish the characters had been ages up just a little bit more. I also think the story might have benefited from one less POVs or maybe making some of the POVs be characters be killed of a bit earlier. By the middle of the book I felt very confident that the POV characters would live which meant I was getting ready for each death of the others. I also found some of the characters to be a bit underdeveloped/ more stereotypical but overall was a good read and excited to see what is next from Worley. Thank you to the author and Wednesday Books for the advanced copy!

4.5 ⭐️

Ten influencers. Ten secrets. One dead body.

Read if you like:
📱Locked-room mysteries
🌴Remote island thrillers
📱Social media influencers
🌴Reality TV
📱Multiple POVs

Olivia Worley's debut YA novel, "People to Follow," is the story of ten teen influencers who come to a remote island in the Caribbean to star in a reality show, "In Real Life." This hot new reality show will force social media's rising stars to unplug for three weeks as their every move is filmed without filters. For these influencers, "IRL" will be the opportunity of a lifetime. But when the production crew fails to show up and a dead body is found, their dream of superstardom turns into a nightmare. Then, they begin receiving messages from a mysterious sponsor who threatens to expose their darkest secrets. They realize that they've been lured into a deadly game, and one of them may be a killer. With the body count rising and cameras watching them, these influencers must figure out who is trying to get them canceled.

Ok, so I realize I am totally not the target audience for this YA novel, but it was such a fun read! This locked-room mystery is told from the perspectives of four of the influencers: Kira, a child star turned fitness influencer; Elody, an Instagram model; Max, a Youtuber; and Logan, a TikToker. With ten influencers as main characters, it was hard at first to remember who was who, but it became easier as the story progressed. This was a twisty, fast-paced thriller that kept me guessing until the very end. It was a fun spin on a classic Agatha Christie novel, perfect for the TikTok generation. What an amazing debut from Olivia Worley! I can't wait to see what she does next.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press/Wednesday Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

CW: death, murder, sexual assault/harassment, alcohol use, cursing

Maybe I'm too old to be the target audience, or maybe the writing is just not amazing, but wow I could not get into this. The characters go no farther than the stereotypes they fit, even when within their POVs. The writing of the POVs themselves are barely distinctive, and everything reads simultaneously too fast and too slow. I was mostly just bored. A really great premise that just was not executed well enough for my taste.

This somehow ended up being my third "remote island, multiple dead bodies" book in one month span, so maybe it's on me that I didn't like this as much as I had hoped.
This YA "locked room" mystery follows ten social media influencers as they unplug for a new reality tv show called "IRL". We get POV from four of the characters, and some are much more likable than others. Not all ten characters were developed very well and I had trouble remembering who was who throughout the story which made the POV changes harder to keep up with.
As the cast keeps getting canceled and more secrets are coming out, you really start to wonder who is behind it all. I will say that I found the ending to be surprising, but it was hard to feel much for these characters throughout the story when they were such whiny, selfish, not great "influencers".
So a good page turner if you want a quick binge, but you won't be influenced by anything you read...

Thank you, NetGalley and Wednesday Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

I was a big fan of Libba Bray's beauty queens when I was a teenager, a satirical novel about beauty queens stuck on an island for nefarious capitalist reasons. People To Follow gave me the same vibes but it wasn't really on the level of Libba Bray. Which is fine. This was a silly, campy, very fun to read book. Not everything worked for me, but I enjoyed it and it was pretty suspenseful but I think the ending was a bit convoluted and over the top. Overall it's definitely worth reading if the plot sounds interesting to you but don't expect it to be memorable.

Okay this book hooked me from the jump. I’m not a Tik tok person, I don’t know anything about the houses or whatever they are but I was able to just roll with it. I loved this book but I do think all the character jumping got a little confusing. I had to go back to see whose chapter I was reading more often than not which was whatever. This worked for me, but I do wonder if there was any narration the contradicted the twists

The premise of this book sounded right up my alley. A bunch of reality stars/influencers on a deserted island and someone ends up dead. They’re all there to participate in a new show called “In Real Life”, where they must unplug for three weeks and go live for everyone to watch along. Sounds like a great opportunity for exposure and clout, until the whole experience turns into a nightmare. They’re all stranded with a dead body and no way to make contact with anyone. On top of all that, they start to receive daunting text messages from an unknown source, threatening to reveal their deepest darkest secrets.

Overall, entertaining read…which was my goal when I picked it up. It was easy to read, and I finished it pretty quickly once I picked it up.

If you’re going to have a killer on an island of influencers, then this is the way to do it. I have read other books that deal with this same concept and by far this is the one I have enjoyed the most as of date. I love the fact that this book is told from multiple points of view. Also, that everyone is connected somehow, and everyone has a reason to potentially be the killer is quite fun. I will say I didn’t expect the killer. Overall, this book is a smooth read, one that will keep the readers guessing, and something that maybe will make people think about what the real cost is of being an influencer.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy.

This book was really difficult to get into. Most of the time I could not keep up with what was going on with the characters or the storyline, perhaps it was me. Influencers trapped on an island without their technology slowly being picked off. Lacking. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

People to Follow is a YA version of Then There We’re None with influencers. This was an easy read with a lot of juicy secrets and twists. Fans of Pretty Little Liars or Gossip Girl will enjoy this one.