Book review: The Influencers

This novel by Anna-Marie McLemore takes a popular movement, that of social media influencer, and wraps a murder mystery around it. Actually, a family of influencers not unlike that infamous LA clan. The family has a bunch of siblings with month names to keep things either interesting or confusing. We quickly learn that the multiple narrators have strikingly different takes on the murder, their roles in the social media pecking order, and whether they deserve all the attention or not from their digital fans. One daughter has grown to hate her “highly-curated, affiliate-linked life” and tired of being as glam as possible even if just running out for a few groceries. The family matriarch led the assent into influencer-land, making millions off of her product recommendations and fancy lifestyle. But the attraction of always being on camera and in front of an audience of admirers eventually cools and there is trouble in paradise. Solving the murder — and hearing various whodunnit theories — occupies most of the book’s back-and-forth conflict amongst the family members, and whether the murder is an asset or a liability in each person’s brand identity. I initially liked the initial setup and the personalities of the family, but like them I eventually got tired of trying to keep all the month-names straight.

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