Article contributed by Rosie Smith
Marlow and her family, mum Floss and dad Aston, have been hand-picked from the American population to live in the luxurious, perfect city of Constellation with its fabricated, beautiful sunsets, zero crime rate, and non-existent money worries. There’s just one catch though… They are live-streamed 24 hours a day, Big Brother-style for the rest of the world to watch. With lives controlled by the omnipresent ‘Network’, Marlow’s family have no say on the direction of their lives, the ‘storyline’ is dictated by the rises and falls in their ‘followers’, the comments and the whims of the audience.
When cracks begin to show in Marlow’s perfect life, she longs to break free of the safe city limits of Constellation and in doing so, uncovers a past full of secrets, lies, and of course, the infamous ‘Spill’ which took place before Marlow’s birth. Pre-Spill life on planet earth was one filled with screens, followers, Insta-stars, Snapchat heroes and TikTok celebs. But little did everyone know that a major event was coming. A catastrophic act of cyberterrorism that will shatter the timeline of planet earth into two, before the Spill and after the Spill. The Spill would reveal everyone’s deep, dark secrets, breaking the internet and leading to a future of totalitarian surveillance, monitoring and fear.
Tired of acting as a pawn in the governments plans, Marlow plans to leave the world of camera’s, rules and control to embark on her own path. Ditching her device, Marlow runs but finds that hiding is the difficult part, will she escape the bots, fans and her chequered past and find out the truth about everything?
Angelo cleverly weaves together two seeming unrelated timelines which meet one another in the thrilling conclusion of this contemporary, sci-fi masterpiece giving readers the ‘everything coming together’ moment leading to a satisfying, emotional conclusion. One timeline takes place in 2016, while the other shows us the futuristic world of Marlow in 2051, laying out a believable and terrifying pathway showing how our current obsession with social media, sharing, and celebrities may continue to grow and evolve over time leading to a dark and damming end. Angelo invites us to question many contemporary issues around social media, privacy, and fame as well as forcing the us to take a good hard look at our own internet usage, friendships, careers, values and choices.
Followers examines, through the complex, witty, and interesting characters, the theme of friendships and good versus bad. Often as the reader you will find yourself thinking about the ways the characters interact and trying to decide who was right and who was wrong in each situation. Good versus bad. Was wannabe celebrity Floss using aspiring writer Orla as a platform for her fame? Or was it Orla who took advantage, using Floss’ celebrity status to kick-start her career? On a wider scale, was the government evil for taking away the liberty and privacy of the population or where they just keeping everyone safe in this scary post-apocalyptic world? But Angelo shows that life is not as simple as that, it isn’t black and white and we can only make the best decisions we can at the time and learn from our pasts. Is anyone really good or bad? Or are we just a series of decisions and circumstances?
In the 2051 section of the book, Marlow is forced by the network to take a drug named Hysteryl, which will help her to control her emotions, creating a more likeable character who doesn’t rock the boat and lose followers. Unfortunately this leads to Marlow being unable to feel anything. This opens a commentary on the knotty current debate in the world of mental health of overmedication. Was Marlow actually sick or was it that her completely normal feelings of frustration and anxiety were pathologised and the Network just wanted more control? Although medication for mental health disorders is nothing short of a miracle for all the lives it saves and changes, is it a one size fits all situation and should we want to eradicate all semblance of feelings? Followers offers an interesting take on this and invites us to question our own experiences, views, and knowledge about what we put into our bodies.
Despite the heavy themes found within Followers, Angelo writes with sensitivity and humour as well as relatable characters and dilemmas, particularly for the young female reader just starting out life as an adult and finding it more than a little daunting. The writing is so creative and seamless, I actually had a hard time believing that Followers is Megan Angelo’s debut novel! It feels like she has been storytelling for years. This is one of those novels that will have you laughing one minute and crying the next, hooking you like a reality TV show, cleverly commenting on the addictive nature of reality TV and social media.
Comparable to the Netflix hit show Black Mirror, Followers has some seriously dark vibes mixed in with its glossy, bubblegum appearance. If you read Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy as a teenager and like me, loved it, you will adore Followers as an adult. Followers tackles many similar themes as Uglies around body image, surveillance/monitoring, and fame but in a more ‘grown-up’ way due to the older age of the characters and the unique challenges that stage of life brings.
Thought provoking, challenging, emotional, and funny, Angelo has written a spectacular debut novel you will not be able to put down. Make sure you set aside some time as you will want to read this in one go.
Followers is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers as of January 14th 2020.
Will you be picking up Followers? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
An electrifying story of two ambitious friends, the dark choices they make and the profound moment that changes the meaning of privacy forever.
Orla Cadden dreams of literary success, but she’s stuck writing about movie-star hookups and influencer yoga moves. Orla has no idea how to change her life until her new roommate, Floss―a striving, wannabe A-lister―comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they so desperately crave. But it’s only when Orla and Floss abandon all pretense of ethics that social media responds with the most terrifying feedback of all: overwhelming success.
Thirty-five years later, in a closed California village where government-appointed celebrities live every moment of the day on camera, a woman named Marlow discovers a shattering secret about her past. Despite her massive popularity―twelve million loyal followers―Marlow dreams of fleeing the corporate sponsors who would do anything, even horrible things, to keep her on-screen. When she learns that her whole family history is a lie, Marlow finally summons the courage to run in search of the truth, no matter the risks.
Followers traces the paths of Orla, Floss and Marlow as they wind through time toward each other, and toward a cataclysmic event that sends America into lasting upheaval. At turns wry and tender, bleak and hopeful, this darkly funny story reminds us that even if we obsess over famous people we’ll never meet, what we really crave is genuine human connection.
