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A review by gilmoreguide
Followers by Megan Angelo
4.0
In 2015 two young women desperate for fame and followers help break the internet. Orla wants to be an author, but in order to survive in NYC she works at a TMZ-like site writing clickbait about celebrities. Her roommate is Floss, a pretty girl with a beautiful voice, but getting into the music business takes too much work so she’s going the social media route. In 2051 a portion of California is the home to a government run community, Constellation, where ‘celebrities’ are filmed every minute of every day for the rest of America to watch. Marlow has lived there for as long as she can remember, but starts to realize she wants out. This is the eerily realistic dystopia of Megan Angelo’s Followers.
Life in 2051 is an uber-heightened version of life in 2020. In 2016 the internet was hacked globally, causing The Spill, laying bare every byte of information loaded on loaded on personal or corporate servers and especially social media. The havoc wreaked was so devastating that the government stepped in, promising connectivity with security. The device was born. A small chip affixed to the wrist that removed the need for electronic equipment. Everything in life is handled by simply thinking it—no phones, iPads, no screens. What is not made clear is that every thought is a piece of data and now, rather than corporations, the government is mining it. Feeling depressed? You’ll soon see an ad suggesting you take Hysteryl, an anti-depressant that Marlow has been on since she was a teenager. Because, of course, corporations are tied into this—the government needs ad revenue to keep the project going. Even better, Marlow’s husband is a Hysteryl executive and the more the drug sells the bigger the perks. It’s only when Marlow learns that her next life event is to get pregnant that she begins to think about leaving. Except it’s not allowed.
The rest of this review is available at The Gilmore Guide to Books: https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/01/followers-a-novel/
Life in 2051 is an uber-heightened version of life in 2020. In 2016 the internet was hacked globally, causing The Spill, laying bare every byte of information loaded on loaded on personal or corporate servers and especially social media. The havoc wreaked was so devastating that the government stepped in, promising connectivity with security. The device was born. A small chip affixed to the wrist that removed the need for electronic equipment. Everything in life is handled by simply thinking it—no phones, iPads, no screens. What is not made clear is that every thought is a piece of data and now, rather than corporations, the government is mining it. Feeling depressed? You’ll soon see an ad suggesting you take Hysteryl, an anti-depressant that Marlow has been on since she was a teenager. Because, of course, corporations are tied into this—the government needs ad revenue to keep the project going. Even better, Marlow’s husband is a Hysteryl executive and the more the drug sells the bigger the perks. It’s only when Marlow learns that her next life event is to get pregnant that she begins to think about leaving. Except it’s not allowed.
The rest of this review is available at The Gilmore Guide to Books: https://gilmoreguidetobooks.com/2020/01/followers-a-novel/