Followers
Megan Angelo, 2020
Graydon House Books
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781525836268
Summary
An electrifying story of two ambitious friends and the dark choices they make to become internet famous.
Orla Cadden is a budding novelist stuck in a dead-end job, writing clickbait about movie-star hookups and influencer yoga moves.
Then Orla meets Floss—a striving, wannabe A-lister—who comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they dream about.
So what if Orla and Floss’s methods are a little shady—and sometimes people get hurt? Their legions of followers can’t be wrong.
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 to keep her on-screen.
When she learns that her whole family history is based on 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. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1983-84
• Where—Quakerstown, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—Villanova University
• Currently—lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Megan Angelo grew up in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, graduating from Villanova University in Philadelphia. The fiction bug bit Angelo early on; she recalls rolling pieces o scrap paper into her parents' typewriter and inventing "very creepy, tragic, dark stories." Fortunately, teachers from elementary school on up through high, encouraged her to continue.
An internship at the Philadelphia Inquirer started Angelo on a path toward journalism, and a second internship placed her at a highly coveted spot at Conde Nast. Upon graduation, she stayed in New York, accepting a job at Nast as editorial assistant. After Nast closed the small imprint she had worked for, Angelo supported herself as a freelance writer. Finally, she hit pay dirt: a job as contributing editor at Glamour.
In 2010, Angelo married a high school classmate, and in 2012 the couple moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They started a family, which now includes three children. All the while, Angelo continued writing until, in 2020, she published Followers, her first novel.
As a freelancer, Angelo's writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Glamour and Elle, among other publications. She continues to live in Pennsylvania with her family. (Adapted from the publisher and online sources.)
Book Reviews
Megan Angelo’s Followers, with its terrific writing about terrifying ideas, is destined to be such a talker that you must read it immediately or risk being out of the loop when your friends start saying things like "She’s such a Marlow!" or "What Would Floss Do?"
Washington Post
Followers is an engaging confection wrapped around a thoughtful critique of how we live our lives online, and how we value others based on their curated personas.
USA Today
This dark, pitch-perfect novel about our dependence on technology for validation and human connection is as addictive as social media itself.
People
[A] dark, witty, astute debut novel.
Slate
As addictive as the social media it questions.
Parade
One of next year's most anticipated books… a scathing, razor-sharp take on the future of humanity and social media
Entertainment Weekly
A compelling look at the power of technology and social networks. You won’t be able to put it down.
Vogue.com
(Starred review) [S]pectacular… Angelo masterfully explores the dark side of social media. [T]he tale skillfully builds to a terrifyingly believable climax…. Angelo delivers a strong, consistently fascinating debut.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Angelo… weaves in a perspective on contemporary political decisions and the effect they could have on us all in the not-so-distant future. This is an intricate and brave story of friendship, ambition, and love and the lengths people will go to protect it all.
Booklist
(Starred review) [T]he joy of details continues all the way to a denouement in Atlantis (formerly Atlantic City), where the… two plotlines are untangled and confirmed. Endless clever details and suspenseful plotting make this speculative-fiction debut an addictive treat.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Marlow’s story, in 2051, imagines a gentle extrapolation of the technologies we have now. What do you think future versions of our technology might look like, and how might they impact our lives? Think of other books, movies, or TV shows that imagine a near future. What is different or similar about this one?
2. Marlow lives a life that seems glamorous, but that grants her very few choices. What did you make of the things she takes back for herself—like her sense of smell—and what does it mean to her? How different do you think Marlow’s life is from that of current celebrities, especially those who were famous as children?
3. If you had to choose between the incredible fame that Floss, Orla, and Marlow experience—and all the wealth and power it brings—or absolute freedom and privacy, which would you choose?
4. Orla and Floss have a complicated bond. Are they friends, exactly, or something more difficult to define? What did you make of their relationship?
5. Why do you think Honey dresses in and surrounds herself with white?
6. How does being a father affect Aston’s character development?
7. Think about the things that Orla and Floss want, respectively. How different do you think they are? How alike?
8. Followers raises many questions about privacy in our digital age. What do we give up and what do we gain with devices that make our lives easier? Does easier necessarily mean better? What kinds of choices are we making every day, without even realizing we’re making them? What do these choices cost us?
9. Discuss Orla’s relationship with her parents, Gayle and Jerry, and to her hometown of Mifflin, Pennsylvania.
10. Marlow is forced to make a terrible choice about her reproductive freedom. Reflect on this choice in light of our current society and the restrictions it places on women’s rights.
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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