I don’t read enough whodunnits. Between Glass Onion and the Agatha Christie movie remakes with Kenneth Branagh, I’m always super invested in these stories, but I never seem as drawn to them when they’re in book form. When I saw that People To Follow by debut novelist Olivia Worley was basically a teen-influencer version of And Then There Were None, I jumped at the chance to be pulled into this world. A bunch of bratty content creators needing to live without their phones and solve a murder? Count me in!

A reality show on a remote Caribbean island. Ten teen influencers. One dead body.

Welcome to “In Real Life,” the hot new reality show that forces social media’s reigning kings and queens to unplug for three weeks and “go live” without any filters. IRL is supposed to be the opportunity of a lifetime, watched closely by legions of loyal followers. But for these rising stars—including Elody, an Instagram model with an impulsive streak; Kira, a child star turned fitness influencer; Logan, a disgraced TikTok celeb with a secret; and Max, a YouTuber famous for exposés on his fellow creators—it’s about to turn into a nightmare.

When the production crew fails to show up and one of their own meets a violent end, these social media moguls find themselves stranded with a dead body and no way to reach the outside world. When they start receiving messages from a mysterious Sponsor threatening to expose their darkest secrets, they realize that they’ve been lured into a deadly game…and one of them might be pulling the strings.

With the body count rising and cameras tracking their every move, the creators must figure out who is trying to get them cancelled—like, literally—before their #1 follower strikes again.

I read a lot of YA for a person who is well into her thirties, but this book just made me feel old and out of touch—and I sometimes work with content creators for my actual job! It could be a case of a book simply not being for me, but I do like a good whodunnit (especially closed-door), so I thought this would resonate with me a little bit better than it did.

What didn’t work for me

The number of characters: Maybe it wasn’t actually the fact that there were 10 characters, but there wasn’t enough of a differentiation between them for me to remember who was who, especially when it came to the Bounce House crowd. I kept having to flip back to remember whose chapter I was reading and really think about the players at all times.

Unrealistic reactions: Call me crazy, but after two people from your group of 10 get murdered, I wouldn’t be playing Spin the Bottle to distract me. I felt that these people didn’t really care that those around them were dying and weren’t reacting to anything like in real life. Sure, these people are meant to be unlikeable and vain and full of themselves, but if 20% of the people you’re with die, you don’t just keep on keeping on with life. Their choices and decisions were ridiculous.

The ending: No spoilers here, but when there’s a letter at the end explaining a lot of things that should have been explained while the story was going on, it kind of means to me that something was missing in the plot.

What I liked

The red herrings: I will say, I didn’t guess the ending, and the red herrings kept me on my toes. The actual mechanics of the whodunnit were very well done; I just couldn’t with the characters.

2.5 STARS

“It’s a view you could die for.” —Olivia Worley, People to Follow

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Wednesday Books for an advanced book copy in exchange for my honest review.