Follow Me

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 had a great premise, but for me, the idea of this one was better than the reality. I don't need to like the characters to enjoy the story, but it does help when I don't want to pinch the main character's head off myself. Audrey irritated me to no end. She suffers from a major case of it's all about me syndrome, which isn't helped by the pedestal the author puts her on. What I mean by that is we're expected to believe that all these men are falling for this thoroughly self-centered woman - not just her stalker but nearly every man she comes in contact with. Plus people just drop everything to run to Audrey when she needs something. It's like no one has a life in this story except the annoying damsel in distress. That brings me to the identity of her stalker, which isn't revealed until close to the end of the book. Kathleen Barber does give us a fair amount of red herrings to consider, but in all honesty, I didn't like Audrey enough to care who the stalker was. In fact, I was surprised that a couple of people didn't at least attempt to take her out before the stalker had a chance to reveal himself. Not that the rest of the characters were much better. In the end, I don't think there were really any characters that I particularly liked in this one. At the end of the day, what it really comes down to isn't whether the characters were likable or not. It's more about whether this mystery/thriller kept those pages turning. I will say that I finished the book, but that was more out of sheer determination than any real curiosity about the stalker's identity or how it would all play out. There was too much of the mundane and not enough tension for it to be what I would consider a thriller. That said, there was a decent twist at the end, but when it happened I wasn't thinking 'wow, I can't believe that happened.' Instead, I was thinking that I couldn't believe it took that long for that character to go off the deep end. Maybe this just wasn't the book for me, which is quite possible. I do realize that I'm in the minority on this one, but I really expected more, and just didn't find it here.