Goodreads

Release date: October 31, 2023

Publisher: Wednesday

Genre: Mystery/Thriller, YA

Synopsis:

Ten teen influencers come to a remote island to star in a reality show, but when one of them winds up dead, they realize that this time, the price of being “cancelled” could be their lives.

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 nine little influencers 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 canceled—like, literally—before their #1 follower strikes again.

Review:

This is the kind of book I would’ve been totally obsessed with when I was in high school. It’s juicy, scandalous and full of catty behavior and plenty of lies. I really liked the locked room style setting but make it a private island with a mansion and no way off the island. So the vibes were great as far as setting goes but it lost me a bit with trying to keep everybody straight when a few characters were very similar. There are four points of view but ten total characters and most of them were awful, think super privileged TikTok influencers with a slew of first world problems. Parts of it bordered on silly but I grabbed this when I wanted a popcorn thriller so I wasn’t mad at some of the ridiculousness but the overall mystery was wasn’t anything amazing. It was decent though, I just wish there was more suspense instead of them deciding to play spin the bottle while people are getting killed.

Overall rating: 3/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.