The author mentions du Maurier’s Rebecca as an inspiration for this novel, so it is both a classic, timeless Gothic novel, and a very modern one. After being dumped via Reddit, Dayna moves into a dilapidated mansion where she spent a night when she was younger. She’s there as a mother hen to a group of younger influencers who live in a “hype house.” They “create content” for a platform (read TikTok), learning ways to trick the algorithm into turning them into stars. She soon learns that one of them, Becca the tarot reader, went missing and they’re still trying to find their footing. A new influencer, Olivia the Orphan, is a new addition to the house, as well as the other POV character. She tells the story through the eyes of a young person, while Dayna narrates it through the filter of her almost forty years on earth. The influencers speak another language that I couldn’t even hope to follow. And I was shocked that the “old person” here was a Millennial! So it was interesting in that regard, to see how these kids think and feel and the different “languages” that both generations speak and how these young people see the pop culture of their elders. The dialogues really help make this clear. There is also Owen Wilson. No, not the actor but a rabbit. He’s important to the plot and he’s adorable. The plot was dark and intriguing. The final part was a little too easy for me, but the ending was satisfying.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Ballantine.

4.75

setting: California
rep: n/a

an odd and totally engrossing book! I went into it blind, pretty much, because it's been so long since I requested it on netgalley that I had no memory of the plot, and it ended up as such a win! really got on with the writing style and the oddness of the plot (the whole concept of a hype house is so strange but I was so hooked)

Thank you to the publisher for sending this my way. I found it so engaging and entertaining and telling of the way influencer culture impacts all generations in different ways. I don’t know much about hype houses, and at first, I was worried this was going to feel a little dated, as trends are so fleeting in our culture, but I enjoyed the writing and storytelling, and the creepy vibes of the house unsettled me. Well done, Leigh.

As I’ve said in many of my reviews, I love picking books based on their covers—and it rarely steers me wrong. I went into this one completely blind, drawn in solely by the cover (pink + bunny = usually a 5-star read for me), and the fact that I’ve had Leigh Stein’s Self Care on my TBR for a while.

As a millennial who’s admittedly chronically online, this book had me dialed in. It ticked all my boxes: biting satire, hype house absurdity, an artsy millennial in the midst of a midlife crisis stuck in a terrible marketing job, a cute animal with a ridiculous name, tarot readings, and a spooky mansion backdrop. (In my mind, it was the John Sowden House—right?)

I really enjoyed the dual POVs between Dayna and Olivia. The story blends satire, mystery, and a dash of true crime. I never quite knew where it was headed, but I didn’t care—I was fully along for the ride. This one is perfect for the weird literature girlies. They’re going to eat it up. And that ending? Still not over it.

Self Care is officially moving up my TBR list.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine for the early copy—I couldn’t put it down!

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read this book!

Wow! While Stein's previous novel, Self Care, didn't really hit the spot for me, this one really transcended the shallow-ness of the culture it is skewering and provided a balance that I found lacking in Self Care. If You're Seeing This was a thrill to read and I found myself thinking about it frequently whenever I wasn't reading.

BOOK REPORT
Received a complimentary copy of If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You, by Leigh Stein, from Ballantine | Ballantine Books/NetGalley, for which I am appreciative, in exchange for a fair and honest review. Scroll past the BOOK REPORT section for a cut-and-paste of the DESCRIPTION of it from them if you want to read my thoughts on the book in the context of that summary.

Whoa!

That was a meta-meta experience, if I’ve ever had one.

How to explain…..

Well, first of all, this was a hell of a lot better book than the last one I read about a bunch of influencers/personalities all living together in one house. Every character seemed like they could be a real person. By the same token, most of them also felt like they could’ve come right out of a Hammer Film Productions British schlock horror movie from the 1960s or early ‘70s, even though this book was set in Los Angeles. (Which, weirdly for me, I did not loathe in this book. I guess because it really didn’t play much of a role, thank heavens.) For those who haven’t heard me sing this song, I love, love, love me some well-done schlock horror, so that’s a compliment.

I will continue to show my age here by saying that I could completely seeing George Hamilton circa 1990 playing the role of Craig in a screen version of this. And that I wish the bunny had been named Owen Meany instead of Owen Wilson, because Oh My God In Heaven you cannot even begin to imagine how much I loathe Owen Wilson. (Well, to be fair to him, not as much as I loathe the state of Alabama’s current attorney general, who has announced his intent to run for the U.S. Senate. And not for the same reasons. The actor just saps my will to live. The AG is evil incarnate.)

Ummm. Ahem. Owen Meany. As in, A Prayer for…..by John Irving. Five stars, still one of my all-time favorite books.

Focus, Kristi, focus…..

Short version: Leigh Stein is all that and a bag of chips, and I need to read more by her. Even though, verily, it pains my soul to read a 39-year-old woman being depicted as perceiving of herself/perceived by others to be past her prime. And, back to the meta-meta, this was a house of mirrors experience in SO many ways.

Dearie, dearie me, but how happy am I that the various video platforms weren’t around when I was a teenager/in my early 20s…..

Schafe: If you’re reading this, I would like for you to read this book (in your oh-so-copious spare time) and give me your thoughts on it. Mother/Nancy: I don’t think you’d like it. Lori: I get the feeling your reading might be the same on it as mine.

PS
If this is the first time you’re reading one of my Goodreads posts, please know that all I do is react to books in real time. As in: How did they make me feel/what did they make me think/did they give me a near-migraine headache?

For the most part I do not attempt to weigh them on their literary merit. A great deal of the time I use writing a Book Report as a reason to share some memory or go off on a tangent/multiple tangents that I want to set down on the record for my own peculiar reasons, and/or to entertain certain family members and friends who I know do give this sort of thing their attention, bless their hearts. (In the good way.)

Finally, even if I really can’t stand a book, I always applaud the person who has been able to write one!

Peace in our time, y’all.

Peace in our time.

DESCRIPTION
Fates collide after a tarot influencer disappears from a decaying Hollywood mansion in this unnerving gothic mystery and audacious social comedy from the acclaimed author of Self Care.

After her boyfriend dumps her in a Reddit post, unemployed thirty-nine-year-old Dayna accepts an unusual opportunity from a man she stopped speaking to twenty years ago: If Dayna can help Craig transform his crumbling mansion into a successful hype house of influencers, he can restore his birthright to its former glory, and she can bring her career back from the dead.

But missing from the mansion is Becca, an enigmatic tarot card reader who built a rabid fandom with her cryptic, soul-touching videos . . . and then vanished. With nineteen-year-old Olivia, the newest member of the hype house (and one of Becca’s biggest fans), Dayna begins to build a social media campaign around Becca’s disappearance that will catapult the creators to new heights of success. Too bad Craig forbids Dayna from pursuing the mystery at its heart.

As Olivia searches for traces of Becca in a labyrinthine house that seems intent on hiding its secrets, and Dayna becomes entangled with both Craig and Jake, the resident heartthrob and the last person to see Becca, the two women make a shocking discovery that will upend everything.

The internet: You may think you’re inhabiting it, but is it really inhabiting you?

This book has a lot of topics going on and felt a bet chaotic to me. I think this book should be marketed to Ryan Murphy horror fans. I could see Ryan Murphy adapting this book and people eating it up. My biggest qualm is that I didn’t really care about any of the characters. It’s satire right that the characters are clamoring to film with a bunny named Owen Wilson? I think this book suffers to movies that are about comedy and then this have to feature fake stand up which ends up being really bad. Except in this case it was really bad ideas for tik toks. It was an interesting idea. It was enjoyable to read but it wasn’t really my favorite because I couldn’t figure out exactly what the book was trying to do until the end.

Disgraced entertainment journalist Dayna takes an offer to manage a hype house based in the mysterious LA Deckler house, but when she gets there she finds a mystery surrounding Bella, the missing tarot influencer that left one night without telling anyone why. Needing a hook for a new campaign, she decides to conduct a search for Bella, against the owner’s instruction, and things unravel into the unimaginable.

I was so intrigued by this concept. If you look at my reading, there’s a lot of influencer suspense lately. Sadly, the mystery fell kind of short for me. The story itself wasn’t bad. It held some truth of the pitfalls of influencer fame, stalkers, hiding (and losing in some cases) your true self, etc, and even the skeezy executive types involved in the industry. What was lacking was the actual search for Bella. When it came to that, it was extremely rushed and ended almost immediately. I’d love to see that fleshed out more and some of the relationships developed a little more (cough Dayna and Jake). All in all I enjoyed the read, but was a little let down with the finish.
Thank you to Leigh Stein and Ballantine for the arc so I could provide this review!

This is the second book in a row that I read that uses social media as a foundational plot source. This one takes a slightly broader view of the industry by placing itself in a hype house--a literal house that creators share and make content in, often appearing in each other's videos, reminiscent of the Old Hollywood studio system. A woman who gets dumped via Reddit post makes her way to the house, owned by an old flame, where she has a standing job offer to help wrangle brand deals for the denizens of the house in question. Trauma, grief, loss, and illness hang over the members of the hype house and a mysterious disappearance heightens everyone's experiences. This is a well-paced thriller with plenty to chew on.

I couldn’t bring myself to finish this book. I went in expecting an enjoyable, campy horror story, but what I got felt more like an irritating portrayal of Gen-Z influencers and a millennial deep in a midlife crisis. I kept waiting for the moment the book would "click" (as many reviewers said the beginning was the strongest part) but that moment never came for me.

While I was curious to see what about the ending turned off so many readers, I couldn’t push myself past the halfway point. The writing is competent, and the author does a good job showcasing the absurdity and shallowness of these “hype house”-style characters, but that just wasn’t enough to keep me engaged.

If you’re in the mood for a horror book with decent writing and don’t mind characters who feel more like social media stereotypes than real people, this might be for you. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me.

wow, this book was really cool. having a gothic novel ostensibly take place in a tiktok hype house is a super wild premise, but dang that was fun. i found this a really quick/engaging read and i'd recommend it for fans of 'the platform' (as they call it in the book, aka tiktok) and lit fic fans alike. stein brings up some really interesting questions about ethics of the content machines and also how people who are older influence the younger generations. i'll definitely be recommending this to friends when it comes out this summer!

I had never heard of a “hype house” before starting this very readable, eerie, modern-gothic novel from Leigh Stein.
It’s essentially a house where social media celebs can move in together and “collab” on their content.
The house in this novel is an aging Hollywood mansion that had been featured in some classic horror films, but that has now fallen into disrepair. The owner is hoping the hype house setting will provide some much needed cash for renovations.
This book was strangely spooky and cringe-worthy. It begs a question that few engaged in social media are willing to reflect upon … how foggy has that line in our lives become between act and accuracy?
Even the way the characters are written… I felt eager to connect but oddly held at arms length…
This was a raw look at the lifestyles of the fame-seeking influencer.
Combine that with the Hollywood house with haunted history, and a missing Tarot card reader, and you get something hard to put down and hard to read at the same time. Very amusing, and somewhat overwhelming.. I will be disappointed if this does not become a series or movie. I simply must see some of this drama played out on screen.
Thank you so very much to Penguin Random House, Leigh Stein and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this ARC.
And also to the representative that reached out to me and recommended that I request this ARC from NetGalley, it was quite enjoyable!

If You're Seeing This, It's Meant For You by Leigh Stein was a really interesting read! The premise of a missing tarot influencer and the weird, decaying mansion where it all went down kept me hooked from start to finish. Dayna, who’s trying to rebuild her life, and Olivia, the eager new influencer, made a great team as they started piecing together the mystery of Becca’s disappearance.

I loved how Stein balanced the gothic, mysterious vibe of the mansion with the modern, sometimes absurd world of social media. It felt like a sharp commentary on influencer culture, and it had me thinking about how much of our lives are actually shaped by the internet. The pacing was good, though there were a couple of moments where things felt a little slow. But honestly, the story kept me engaged, especially with the twists toward the end.

If you’re into a mix of mystery, a little bit of social media chaos, and a spooky setting, this book is definitely worth checking out! Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

Social media influencer competitions as gothic novel, check. Cautionary tale about the media, check. Ghosts and violence and horror, check. Within all of these tropes is a surprisingly solid novel about how people evaluate their lives, measure themselves against others, believe in lies even when they know they're lies, and seek happiness in worlds that seem utterly antithetical to it. The set up--a man with a famous but collapsing mansion invites influencers to create a "hype house" and compete with one another for sponsorship--allows Stein to bring together a swath of different people at different times in their lives, with radically different goals. Their interactions feel mostly real, full of ambivalence and uncertainty and mistakes and realizing things too late, and the characters are mostly interesting and sympathetic, except for a few who remain underdeveloped. So if you're into reality TV or YouTube videos, and like a mystery, you'll probably enjoy this.

I thought this was a unique way of combining old and modern ways Hollywood dreams and myths have changed, especially with missing girl, tarot reader Becca Chambers, is involved. I recommend this novel if you like mysteries that aren’t super dark/serious and have an element of foolishness tossed in. And a rabbit named Owen Wilson. Who doesn’t love bunnies??

Dayna is a late 30-something who belongs to a dying world -- celeb gossip blogs and print media. When her boyfriend dumps her via a reddit post, she reconnects with an internet friend from 20 years ago for a place to live/job offer. A portrait of arrested development, Dayna bumbles her way through running Craig's crumbling mansion turned hype house while sleeping with the talent, acting like a teenager, and all-around being a TikTok stereotype of a millennial.

I was really intrigued for the first 20% or so, but we never delve deeper into the characters, learn more about the house, or really scratch the surface thematically. I don't usually say this -- but this book could've benefited from being about 50 pages longer. Some of the plot points and ideas here needed more room to breathe, and I feel they could've been developed in a way more meaningful to the reader. As it stands, the plotting is faster and faster as the novel continues -- to it's detriment.

I felt like this novel was trying to say something about... influence culture maybe? But never felt involved enough to absorb about it.

Recommended for those looking for a page-turning, influencer+gothic vacation read.

An excellent and evocative story about social media, very clearly drawing inspiration from gothic literature in a successful and compelling way. Will recommend!

Gothic mansions, influencers, Owen Wilson, bloodlines, and tarot. This book shows the impact of internet parasocialism with perfection. As someone who went to college for communications, the plot is extremely accurate and funny. Whether we admit it or not, social media management can be ridiculous. Stein strategically mixes two contrasting elements, present day society and ancient magick, in this enjoyable novel. “If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant for You” is my first ARC read and I wasn’t disappointed. Thank you for this opportunity, NetGalley!

Thanks to Ballantine Books for the ARC.

If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant for You had some enjoyable standout moments, but its uneven writing and rushed ending keep me from giving it a higher star rating.

I really enjoyed the satire and commentary on influencing and social media. I’m not sure if it was the author’s intention, but I found Dayna an unreliable narrator who was skeptical of influencing but also sucked into it. I imagine this attitude will mirror a lot of readers’ experiences with the almighty algorithm. The first third to half of the novel does a good job building a gothic, mysterious atmosphere.

Unfortunately, after all that tension, the ending is laid out very quickly, though it fits well with the preceding events. Through the book, I found most of the characters wooden and one-dimensional. We don’t really get to know them beyond some superficial details that are told to us. Maybe this is a reflection of how we never truly know the influencers we follow online, but it doesn’t make for a well-rounded reading experience.

There are also multiple relationships that, while not illegal, toe the line of ethics. The imbalance in power dynamics is only obliquely referenced. I felt a little crazy reading those moments—was it supposed to be normal?

The book tries to hit a lot of notes: humor, tragedy, psychological horror, coming of age, millennial malaise, and surrealism. Leigh Stein executes some of these tones better than others. If readers are interested in social commentary, they will likely enjoy this book but may want to look elsewhere for stronger literary work.

This book was so smart and funny. Reminded me of Rufi Thorpe x Margo's Got Money Trouble. It's exactly the book I'll tell people to buy & take on their summer vacations. Owen Wilson Forever!