From the author of Truth Be Told (formerly titled Are You Sleeping)–now an Apple TV series of the same name–comes a cautionary tale of oversharing in the social media age for fans of Jessica Knoll and Caroline Kepnes’s You. Everyone wants new followers…until they follow you home. Audrey Miller has an enviable new job at the Smithsonian, a body by reformer Pilates, an apartment door with a … a body by reformer Pilates, an apartment door with a broken lock, and hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers to bear witness to it all. Having just moved to Washington, DC, Audrey busies herself impressing her new boss, interacting with her online fan base, and staving off a creepy upstairs neighbor with the help of the only two people she knows in town: an ex-boyfriend she can’t stay away from and a sorority sister with a high-powered job and a mysterious past.
But Audrey’s faulty door may be the least of her security concerns. Unbeknownst to her, her move has brought her within striking distance of someone who’s obsessively followed her social media presence for years–from her first WordPress blog to her most recent Instagram Story. No longer content to simply follow her carefully curated life from a distance, he consults the dark web for advice on how to make Audrey his and his alone. In his quest to win her heart, nothing is off-limits–and nothing is private.
With “compelling, suspenseful” (Liz Nugent) prose, Kathleen Barber’s electrifying new thriller will have you scrambling to cover your webcam and digital footprints.
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“Follow Me” by Kathleen Barber reveals the potential dangers of social media. Everyone wants new followers… until they follow you home.
Barber tells this chilling story from alternating points of view, and chapters are identified by speaker for readers. The characters share feelings, plans, and backstories to show how they each got to where they are now in the story. People know there are liars on the internet, and readers are left to sort the truth from the lies, and observe as the magnitude of some lies threaten to alter lives or even end lives.
Audrey Miller posts her entire life on Instagram where she has a million-plus follower, and that activity enabled her to get her dream job as the Social Media Manager for Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC. Her life revolves around generating new content for her followers. Her best friend is Cat Harrell, a successful Virginia lawyer, and the two are renewing their friendship after Audrey’s move to DC. Then, readers read about “him.” He follows Audrey’s every move on social media, every single move, obsessively.
The story progresses in a casual manner with activities, social media posts, and work demands. Readers know from the start that someone is watching, and follow along as “He” carefully watches, as Audrey celebrates every detail of her new job, and as Cat recommends caution. Tension builds slowly as readers start a roller coaster ride that seems calm but wary at the start, but with every new incident, turns into a thrill ride with twists, turns, and death-defying drops.
“Follow Me” is an example of the dark side of the internet. Be careful on social media because everyone lies, although I am not lying about loving this book. I received a review copy of “Follow Me” from Kathleen Barber, Pocket Books, and Gallery Books.
Enthralling, terrifying, and all too real, Follow Me is a cautionary tale for the social media obsessed. In this twisty, propulsive thriller, Kathleen Barber is at the top of her game, plumbing the depths of female friendship and obsession, while showing us who we really are, #unfiltered.
Follow Me is a gripping, chilling, and relevant deep dive into the dark and scary side of social media. Kathleen Barber masterfully keeps the reader guessing until the mind-blowing conclusion.
Relevant and chilling, Follow Me is a compelling, cautionary tale about the lust for social media attention and the dangers of Internet exposure. A must-read!
This is my second book by this author and so far I enjoyed what I read. I love that books are so easy and fast to read and yet have a certain depth to it.
This was not different with this book, I loved that we get multiple POV again, I made it so much better to enjoy, it was not confusing and each voice was great in their own way.
It was easy to relate to them good or the bad …. Which made it even better, It was suspenseful and made kept me super engaged in the book.
One thing was for sure, this book makes you really think…. About not only about how much we spend online but really how much we share and how it can be used against you/
It sure has left me a bit more paranoid, that is for sure lol .
I rate it 4
I’ve been eagerly awaiting Kathleen Barber’s sophomore novel since I first read ARE YOU SLEEPING (which has been adapted as TRUTH BE TOLD for Apple TV+), so I devoured her latest, FOLLOW ME, over the weekend. Audrey Miller has spent a long time cultivating her Instagram presence, which has over a million followers. But she soon learns that the downside to documenting your every move online is that you can’t control who you’re inviting into your life. Enter “Him,” Audrey’s creepy stalker who narrates some of the chapters in the book. He’s convinced he’s in love with her, and will do anything to be close to her—even if that means watching her through her laptop’s camera and finding even more nefarious ways to infiltrate her life. Kathleen Barber did such a brilliant job of filling this book with male characters who might have been Him. Everyone had something suspicious about them, and as a reader, I didn’t trust anyone. Every time another male character came into a scene, I had so much fun picking apart every single thing he said and did to see if he might be Him. And by setting us along that path, Barber masterfully illuminates for us different layers of bad and/or inappropriate behavior from men to women, and the many ways in which some men feel entitled to the women they want—regardless of how the woman feels, or what she says, in return. The Him character himself was so well crafted; “creepy” doesn’t even do it justice. Fans of Caroline Kepnes’ YOU will love this book, another one in which a man’s infatuation with a woman emboldens him to do anything, no matter how immoral or illegal, to have what he wants. My favorite line was this one, from page 194: “how easy it was to blame ambitious women for their own demise.” While Audrey parades her life online—to much success—she is never “asking for” any of the terrifying things she soon endures because of Him. In this way, the book seemed, to me, to speak to the ways in which society tries to control the narrative of women’s lives, even as—and especially when—women exhibit agency over their public personas. This was definitely a thrilling, chilling, and thought-provoking read.
Well this makes me think even more about what I post online. Good thing I keep everything private. It was hard to actual get behind anyone in this book. None was nice enough to like or care about in my opinion. It was fascinating to figure out who was the stalker. In this day in age the biggest thing you can take away from this book is to keep all your online stiff private and always turn your computer off or cover the camera with a sticky tape.
*I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.*
Follow Me by Kathleen Barber has a very distinct You feeling, and while not quite as fantastic as that book (one of my favorite thrillers of all time), it still instills a feeling of disquiet and distinct creepiness. I really enjoyed the switches between the characters, and the “him” chapters are just a part of where Barber brings the creep factor. While the stalker is known in You, it isn’t here, and it may come as quite a surprise to some people. As the book went on, I could partially see where it was going so it wasn’t a complete surprise to me, but it was definitely quite the ride to get there. It also made me want to tape over the camera on my computer/never be an influencer and reminds readers that the internet isn’t a very safe place. I also loved the fact that the author tells us where her idea came from right at the beginning of the book. This whole novel reminded me of watching a Criminal Minds episode and I really enjoyed Barber’s engaging writing style.
The audiobook of Follow Me was enjoyable as well and narrated by Corey Brill, Erin Moon & Emily Tremaine. There is nothing I love more than a narrator for each character, and these voice actors really brought it. It can be on the slow side, so I was glad I listened to it and was able to hear the narrators bring it to life for me. There wasn’t anything weird about the audio which was a plus (I’m picky, leave me alone), and it was just a really nice experience doing it that way. There are parts of the ending that completely shocked me, and more than one thing that I didn’t see coming. I am always really intrigued by any book that mentions influencers and the internet, and this story is like a thriller and a warning all rolled into one. I have a copy of Are You Sleeping and now I am quite excited to get to it!
I received a complimentary digital copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Is social media a ladder to success or a curse of our generation? “Follow Me” sheds light on this subject, showing how easy it is to fall victim to someone’s obsession when you virtually live your life online for everyone to see. I admit, it creeped me out in a few places and particularly after reading the author’s note on how real-life and dark web inspired her to write this thriller. I also appreciated how the story was told from several different perspectives, each with its own distinctive voice. If you love thrillers and suspense as much as I do, don’t miss out on this one – you’ll love it, I promise, even if it gives you some major goosies and makes you think twice before posting another update on your Instagram.
In this twisty thriller about every woman’s worst online nightmare, Barber expertly explores complex issues of privacy, voyeurism, and consent while keeping the pages turning with heart-pounding, all-too-plausible suspense.
Who hasn’t stalked — I mean, looked up — an old flame, friend, or celebrity on social media? Follow Me is a sharp look at the downfall of inventing better online versions of our own realities. Absorbing, utterly addictive, and possibly the most riveting book I’ve read this year.
A chilling take on obsession, self-obsession, and the closing gap between the two in our hyperconnected digital age.
A thriller for the Instagram age, Follow Me doesn’t let up until the final twist. It had me looking over my shoulder, closing my social media apps with a shudder, and above all, flipping pages to find out what happened next.
Wow! What a deliciously creepy page-turner. More than just an addictive thriller, Kathleen Barber’s chilling insights about social media and privacy will stay with you long after its last nail-biting pages.
I just finished this book and it was excellent! If you like suspense with a dose of a good old fashioned psychopath or two, check it out. I look forward to reading many books by this fantastic author. In fact I’m gonna go find her other book right now! Happy reading!
Follow Me by Kathleen Barber is a spine chilling, nail biting story about social media and the internet. It centers around Audrey who has millions of Instagram followers and a deranged stalker who will stop at nothing to make Audrey his. Without giving away any spoilers, this book will terrify and haunt you and make you question the dangers of internet exposure. The storyline is full of suspense that will grab you and creep you out from the first page. The author did an exceptional job in crafting the characters. I rated this book a five.
I thought that this book was really good! I have had a digital copy of this book for quite a while but hadn’t picked it up yet for some reason. Recently, I came across the book again while browsing my library’s collection of audiobooks and decided that it was time to give it a try. I am so glad that I finally got around to reading this book! I was hooked by the story right away and it kept me guessing until the very end.
Everybody loves Audrey. She has hundreds of thousands of followers online and is often recognized. She is hired by a museum in Washington DC to handle the social media for a new exhibit. She moves to a new city where her old boyfriend and friend from college currently live so she’s not alone. Audrey has lost friends due to her oversharing online and it was eye-opening to see just what went into her carefully created image.
We see this story from three points of view. We see things from Audrey’s perspective and also from her friend Cat’s point of view. Cat is much more serious than Audrey and sometimes resents Audrey’s constant need to be out doing something fun. The third narrator is the man stalking Audrey. We see different aspects of this man’s life and get to know how he sees Audrey but his identity kept me guessing until the very end.
I thought that this book was really exciting. I had absolutely no idea who Audrey’s stalker until the author wanted me to know. There were several characters that I suspected but I just couldn’t pin it down. I was also very interested in the relationship between Cat and Audrey. Cat seemed to fluctuate between admiring Audrey and being annoyed by her attitude. I loved how many layered this story was and I found it really hard to quit thinking about even when I wasn’t reading it.
I thought that the narrating team of Corey Brill, Erin Moon, and Emily Tremaine did a fantastic job with this story. I really felt like each narrator was able to bring their character to life. I like that they used three different narrators to perform this book since it made the shift between perspectives flow easily. I thought that all of the narrators had a very pleasant voice that was easy to listen to for hours at a time.
I would recommend this book to others. I thought that this was a very well done thriller that kept me guessing and felt relevant in today’s social media-obsessed world. I wouldn’t hesitate to read more of this author’s work in the future.
I received a digital review copy of this book from Gallery, Pocket Books via NetGalley and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.
I read Follow Me so quickly because it was hard to put down. It is so suspenseful, and you never know what is coming next! The characters are all very flawed with serious hang-ups, yet as you’re reading, you can’t help but wonder if you are like any of them. Do you obsessively follow anyone on social media? Do you constantly post photos of yourself, your food, your clothes? Do you even think twice about sharing where you are at any given moment? Are you so insecure that you think if you don’t drop everything when the friend you’ve pinned your identity to needs you for fear they’ll NOT need you anymore? I could go on and on, but as you read Follow Me, you’ll soon see the flaws in the others.
Follow Me took me on a crazy, wild ride with so many twists and turns it’s a wonder I didn’t get motion sickness. As I read, I really kept changing my mind about who the stalker was. Though I suspected the correct character several times, I really hoped that it was not that person. That’s the only reason I gave it 4 /4.5 stars.
If you are a fan of You and you love thrillers, you will love reading Follow Me. I definitely recommend it! (Just don’t get too attached to anyone LOL.)
Audrey Miller has jut started a new job at the Smithsonian as a social media manager.. thanks to her own 1 million plus followers on Instagram, where she puts her entire life out there.
She only knows two people … an ex-boyfriend that she is still attracted to and a college friend, Cat, who lives a very private life.
Audrey, unbeknownst to her, has a stalker… one that has followed her for many years. Now that she is within reach, he wants to make Audrey his … and his alone. He will do whatever he must to make this obsession come true.
Stories like these should make everyone think twice before putting their life in any online social media outlet. This was well written, with 3 voices .. Audrey, Cat and “Him”. I can’t say I liked either of the ladies. Audrey came across as narcissistic, while Cat was a little on the needy side. Suspense is maintained throughout with measured pacing. Many and varied subjects keep you riveted and playing the “guess who” game.
Many thanks to the author / Gallery Books – Pocket Books / Netgalley for the digital copy of this Psychological Thriller. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
Follow Me
By Kathleen Barber
“Everyone wants new followers…until they follow you home.”
Reading this thriller is everything I wanted to creep me out! Realistic and totally intense.
What if someone was obsessed with you and is able to watch everything you are doing by remotely accessing your device to watch your every move? So believable it’s totally mind blowing.
Told in multiple POVs, the story moves fast paced with each chapters just giving you enough to keep your fingers turning those pages. This was quite the read and I highly recommend.