‘Smart, gobble-at-a-sitting thriller about life as a yummy mummy influencer and the dark side of Instagram’ – Guardian
‘Brilliantly original’ – Clare Mackintosh, author of After the End
‘Deliciously dark and devious’ – Red
‘Highly recommended’ – Harriet Tyce, author of Blood Orange
‘Gone Girl-esque’ – The Times
‘I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough’ – Abigail Dean, author of Girl A
A razor-sharp, wickedly smart suspense debut about an ambitious influencer mom whose soaring success threatens her marriage, her morals, and her family’s safety.
Followed by Millions, Watched by One
To her adoring fans, Emmy Jackson, aka @the_mamabare, is the honest “Instamum” who always tells it like it is.
To her skeptical husband, a washed-up novelist who knows just how creative Emmy can be with the truth, she is a breadwinning powerhouse chillingly brilliant at monetizing the intimate details of their family life.
To one of Emmy’s dangerously obsessive followers, she’s the woman that has everything—but deserves none of it.
As Emmy’s marriage begins to crack under the strain of her growing success and her moral compass veers wildly off course, the more vulnerable she becomes to a very real danger circling ever closer to her family.
In this deeply addictive tale of psychological suspense, Ellery Lloyd raises important questions about technology, social media celebrity, and the way we live today. Probing the dark side of influencer culture and the perils of parenting online, People Like Her explores our desperate need to be seen and the lengths we’ll go to be liked by strangers. It asks what—and who—we sacrifice when make our private lives public, and ultimately lose control of who we let in. . . .
Ellery Lloyd is the pseudonym for London-based husband-and-wife writing team Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos.
Collette is a journalist and editor, the former content director of Elle (UK) and editorial director at Soho House. She has written for The Guardian, The Telegraph, and the Sunday Times.
Paul is the author of two previous novels, Welcome to the Working Week and Every Day is Like Sunday. He is the program director for English Literature with Creative Writing at the University of Surrey.
My Review:
WOW – WOWSER – WOW – Yes I think you can gather from my opening words I rather enjoyed this book. In fact I devoured it so quickly I might need to take some Gaviscon!
I absolutely ADORED this book, I loved the two main narrators Emmy and her husband Dan, and now I’ve just found out this book was written by a real life married couple, the authenticity of Emmy and Dan makes sense, as whilst reading I was intriged how the author managed to capture both a male and female point of view so realistically.
People Like You is a wickedly funny look at the lives of the Instagramers… the influencers who always look stunning and photoshopped, have more followers than brain cells, advertise and promote anything from designer clothes to hemorrhoid cream and everything in between.
Emmy Jackson is a savvy business woman who left her job in journalism and started a parenting vlog at just the right time. With the largest number of followers on Instagram, she lives with her husband Dan, a writer, and their 3 year old daughter Coco and newborn baby boy Bear.
It appears that their entire life is captured on camera and uploaded to her adoring public, however it becomes clear that not everything is quite what it seems and Emmy is an expert at filtering out the truth and glossing over reality.
Emmie is not particularly likeable and there are moments when I really couldn’t believe she had done/said things. She appears to believe her own hype and puts her followers before her marriage and children.
Dan, however, is a far more likeable character. Having written a best seller over 8 years ago, he’s still struggling to finish (or start) that elusive second book, and whilst he doesn’t particularly like Emmy’s career choice and putting their family out in the public eye, he knows that it’s Emmy who is paying for their extravagant lifestyle.
The third narrator in People Like You is an unknown voice. A stalker who is out to destroy Emmy and her family and make her pay for something dreadful that happened in the past.
Honestly, I loved the pace, the dry humour of Dan, the ridiculous behaviour of the influencers, the behind the scenes reality of social media, the original storyline and the characters. Overall, this gets 5 big shiny stars from me and a definite recommendation to anyone who likes a twisty thriller. #lovedit #mamabare #instagram #hatehashtags
