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WORK TITLE: Follow Me Back
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://avgeiger.com/
CITY:
STATE: NJ
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
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| HEADING: | Geiger, A. V. |
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| 040 | __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC |e rda |
| 100 | 1_ |a Geiger, A. V. |
| 670 | __ |a Follow me back, 2017: |b ECIP title page (A.V. Geiger) |
PERSONAL
Married; two children.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Epidemiologist and writer.
WRITINGS
Author of teen fiction published online at Wattpad.
SIDELIGHTS
A. V. Geiger is an epidemiologist focusing on women’s psychiatric and reproductive health who also writes young-adult fiction. Fascinated by online fan culture, she began her writing career by crafting fan fiction about celebrities, and she writes original teen fiction on the Wattpad online platform under the username @adam_and_jane, gaining hundreds of thousands of followers. Her first published novel, Follow Me Back, originated on this platform in 2015 and appeared in print, somewhat revised, in 2017.
The novel reflects her interest in the use of social media to follow the lives of celebrities and express love for them that sometimes turns obsessive. Protagonist Tessa Hart is a teenager who has suffered a trauma so extreme that she has not only postponed going to college but even refuses to leave her bedroom. She will not discuss the incident that caused her to hide from the world, which happened at an arts camp in New Orleans. She communicates with others mostly through social media, and she is particularly interested in pop-music superstar Eric Thorn; her Twitter account is @TessaHeartsEric. Eric has troubles as well. He is sick of his admirers’ passionate devotion, and he has become aware of fame’s downside, as he knew a musician who was murdered by a deranged fan.
Tessa comes to Eric’s attention through a piece of fan fiction she wrote. Because of this and his general disgust with his own celebrity, he creates a Twitter account called @EricThornSucks using the name Taylor. In this guise, he develops an online friendship with Tessa and crafts a scheme to get her to leave her house and meet him. Others have been spying on them, however, and their situation becomes dangerous. Tessa and Eric are also unreliable narrators, adding to the mystery of their story, and a late twist throws much of what went before into question. Geiger alternates their points of view, supplementing their narratives with tweets and police reports.
Some critics considered Follow Me Back a riveting story that will keep readers guessing. “Geiger deftly turns what could become a sappy romance back into something completely horrific with just a few words, leaving readers with a hauntingly ambiguous conclusion,” remarked Rachel Wadham in Voice of Youth Advocates. A Publishers Weekly reviewer observed that the novel “should transfix teens for whom online relationships (romantic and otherwise) are integral parts of daily life.” A contributor to YA Shelf called it “a fantastic and addictive read.”
Others expressed reservations. Some thought the main characters lacked appeal. “Eric and Tessa are stereotypes who could easily appear in a ‘How To Write Fanfic’ textbook,” maintained Jenna Harper, writing online at All about Romance. A Kirkus Reviews commentator found that the mysterious nature of Tessa’s trauma made it hard to sympathize with her, while “Eric comes across as a self-obsessed goon.” The “last-minute reveal,” the Kirkus Reviews critic added, will puzzle readers, “but not in a good way.” For Harper, the story was redeemed a bit by “some refreshing twists,” but she was left “frustrated” by the ambiguity of the ending. In Booklist, Maggie Reagan pronounced the characters “thinly drawn,” but she predicted the story would be “addictive” to teens interested in social media and celebrity fandom.
The conclusion did not diminish some reviewers’ enjoyment of Follow Me Back. “Quite frankly, I’m a little angry about the ending,” remarked a blogger at Childishly Passionate. “But that doesn’t make it any less brilliant—it makes it even better.” This critic further praised the novel by saying: “It’s unique, it’s haunting and it had me guessing at every turn.” Stacey Armand, writing online at Prose and Palate, called the book “definitely a train ride to crazy town but in the best possible way.” The YA Shelf contributor summed it up as “an excellent read” and “highly recommended.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, June, 2017, Maggie Reagan, review of Follow Me Back, p. 92.
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2017, review of Follow Me Back.
Publishers Weekly, May 1, 2017, review of Follow Me Back, p. 62.
Voice of Youth Advocates, June, 2017, Rachel Wadham, review of Follow Me Back, p. 78.
ONLINE
All about Romance, https://allaboutromance.com/ (February 21, 2018), Jenna Harper, review of Follow Me Back.
A.V. Geiger Website, https://avgeiger.com (February 21, 2018).
Childishly Passionate, https://childishlypassionate.wordpress.com/ (January 4, 2017), review of Follow Me Back.
Prose and Palate, https://www.proseandpalate.com/ (June 6, 2017), Stacey Armand, review of Follow Me Back.
YA Shelf, http://www.theyashelf.com/ (March 15, 2017), review of Follow Me Back.
A.V. Geiger is an epidemiologist who spends far too much spare time on social media. By day, she studies women’s psychiatric and reproductive health. By night, she can be found fangirling, following people back, and photoshopping the heads of band members onto the bodies of unicorns.
Her writing began with celebrity fan fiction, and her work draws on her own experiences with online fan culture. Her original teen fiction has received millions of hits online, posted under the Wattpad username @adam_and_jane, with over 200,000 followers and counting. Her YA romantic thriller, Follow Me Back, was the #1 ranked Mystery/Thriller on Wattpad in 2015. A revised and expanded version of Follow Me Back will be published June 1, 2017 by Sourcebooks Fire.
When she’s not writing, she also runs the popular Wattpad Obsessed (@FollowBackBook) account on Twitter, as well as her personal Twitter feed @av_geiger.
A.V. Geiger Author E-News: Subscribe here for news, giveaways, and exclusive details!
Find answers to Frequently Asked Questions here…
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Will Follow Me Back have a sequel?
Yes! There is a sequel planned for release in Summer 2018. The story will pick up where Book 1 left off… and everything you think you understand about these characters will be thrown into question all over again.
Can I read the rest of the story on Wattpad if I don’t want to wait for the sequel?
You can try, but I have to warn you: the plot of the published version will diverge a ton from the chapters on Wattpad. You won’t know the real story until the sequel comes out in 2018. #Sorry #NotSorry 🙂
What does the A.V. stand for?
The V is for Viv, and that’s the name most people call me. The A is a deep, dark secret. (You’ll find I like secrets. That’s why I write mysteries.)
How old are you?
See answer above about liking secrets… Old enough to have a husband and two little ones running around. Young enough to act like a teenage fangirl on social media.
Where do you live?
The wilds of central New Jersey.
How can I get in touch with you?
I’m totally open to reader feedback. I’m happy to answer questions. I also think it’s important as an author to listen and learn from the collected wisdom of my readers. Twitter and Wattpad are the fastest ways to reach me, or you’re welcome to email: theavgeiger@gmail.com.
For professional inquiries, I’m represented by Lydia Shamah of the Carol Mann Agency.
Quoted in Sidelights: “Geiger deftly turns what could become a sappy romance back into something completely horrific with just a few words, leaving readers with a hauntingly ambiguous conclusion,”
Geiger, A.V.: Follow Me Back
Rachel Wadham
Voice of Youth Advocates.
40.2 (June 2017): p78. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
4Q * 4P * J * S
Geiger, A.V. Follow Me Back. Sourcebooks Fire, 2017. 368p. $10.99 Trade pb. 978-14926-4523-8.
A traumatic experience left Tessa with anxiety so severe she cannot leave her bedroom. Twitter and the access it gives her to megastar Eric Thorn is her last connection to the world. Feeling trapped by his fame, Eric begins using a Twitter account registered under his middle name to vent his true feelings. When Eric and Tessa's Twitter worlds collide, they bond over their shared feelings of helplessness and fall in love. To reveal the truth about his identity, Eric concocts an elaborate scheme to get Tessa out of her house and into his arms. Little do they know that others have been listening in, making their in-person meeting the one thing that will bring both of their worst fears into reality.
Told though alternating points of view, tweets, and police reports, this novel is perfect for fans of Sara Shepard, April Henry, or Kimberly Derting. In her debut novel, Geiger creates a rich horror story which is all the more intriguing because of its conceivable possibilities. Using fan culture and social media communications to the best effect, she makes the setting and plot convincingly real. Tessa is savvier then some heroines of the genre, and Eric makes a good foil. While elements of Tessa's emotional recovery and the depth of their online-only romance do strain credibility, Geiger deftly turns what could become a sappy romance back into something completely horrific with just a few words, leaving readers with a hauntingly ambiguous conclusion. Readers will anticipate the next volume in Tessa's sage, slated for summer 2018.-- Rachel Wadham.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Wadham, Rachel. "Geiger, A.V.: Follow Me Back." Voice of Youth Advocates, June 2017, p. 78.
PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A497860384/GPS?u=schlager&
1 of 5 1/28/18, 2:39 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
sid=GPS&xid=213eeec4. Accessed 28 Jan. 2018. Gale Document Number: GALE|A497860384
2 of 5 1/28/18, 2:39 PM
Quoted in Sidelights: “thinly drawn,” “addictive”
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Follow Me Back
Maggie Reagan
Booklist.
113.19-20 (June 2017): p92. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Follow Me Back. By A. V. Geiger. June 2017.368p. Sourcebooks/Fire, paper, $10.99 (9781492645238). Gr. 7-10.
Tessa Hart hasn't left her bedroom in months, not since the thing she can't talk about happened and she deferred college for a year. Her mother and boyfriend are impatient, and Tessa's only connections to the outside world are her therapist and her Twitter account, where she follows pop star Eric Thorn. Eric has some issues of his own: a fellow musician was murdered by an obsessed fan, and Eric's been paranoid of his own fans ever since (yes, it might be a one-in-a-million incident, but he has 14 million followers). When Eric Thorn fan fiction catapults Tessa into the fandom's spotlight, a frustrated Eric creates a fake profile to troll her and ends up starting a real conversation. But this is the Internet, and no one is who they seem. This tends toward melodrama, and the characters are thinly drawn--Tessa's agoraphobia could have been better researched and better handled. But celebrity culture and Twitter wars will catch the attention of many teens, and for them, this thriller will be addictive. --Maggie Reagan
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Reagan, Maggie. "Follow Me Back." Booklist, June 2017, p. 92. PowerSearch,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A498582826/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=91fecb48. Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A498582826
3 of 5 1/28/18, 2:39 PM
Quoted in Sidelights: “should transfix teens for whom online relationships (romantic and otherwise) are integral parts of daily life.”
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Follow Me Back
Publishers Weekly.
264.18 (May 1, 2017): p62+. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Follow Me Back
A.V. Geiger. Sourcebooks Fire, $10.99 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-1-4926-4523-8
Battling agoraphobia triggered by an event she refuses to discuss, Tessa Hart defers her freshman year of college and spends her days locked away; social media is her primary connection to the outside world. On Twitter, Tessa finds sanctuary in the online fandom surrounding Eric Thorn, where devotees of this onetime YouTube hopeful turned pop music star follow his every move. Eric himself is jaded, constricted by his celebrity and afraid of his often rabid and obsessive fans. After creating an alternate persona to troll his own fans on Twitter, Eric--under the pseudonym Taylor--begins a friendship and flirtation with seemingly genuine Tessa. As their relationship deepens, identities become less clear and things turn deadly. Debut author Geiger's social-media- saturated thriller (which fittingly got its start on Wattpad) should transfix teens for whom online relationships (romantic and otherwise) are integral parts of daily life, and cat fishing and hacking are genuine fears. Tweets, direct messages, and police interrogation transcripts are incorporated throughout, throwing the reliability of both narrators into question and hinting at the sinister thread underlying this boy-meets-girl story. Ages 14--up. Agent: Lydia Shamah, Carol Mann Agency. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Follow Me Back." Publishers Weekly, 1 May 2017, p. 62+. PowerSearch,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491575379/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=4778c3cc. Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A491575379
4 of 5 1/28/18, 2:39 PM
Quoted in Sidelights: “Eric comes across as a self-obsessed goon.” “last-minute reveal,” “but not in a good way.”
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Geiger, A.V.: FOLLOW ME BACK
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 1, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Geiger, A.V. FOLLOW ME BACK Sourcebooks Fire (Children's Fiction) $10.99 6, 6 ISBN: 978-1-4926-4523-8
Two teens develop a Twitter relationship.White teen Tessa Hart's life has been put on hold. After a terrible incident at an arts camp, Tessa has developed agoraphobia, and her condition confines her to her bedroom. Her window to the outside world is her Twitter profile, @TessaHeartsEric, where she fixates on white teen heartthrob Eric Thorn. Eric is tired of the way his official Twitter handle, @EricThorn, is swamped with adoration from his fans, so he creates @EricThornSucks to have a bit of fun. Eventually Tessa and Eric meet online, and as they send direct messages back and forth, a peculiar friendship starts to form. But not everything is as it seems. This mystery element ends up being the novel's undoing. The author hints at Tessa's dark past here and there, eventually revealing the terrible happening, but understanding her condition is key to readers' empathizing with her, so withholding that information cripples the narrative. On the other end, Eric comes across as a self-obsessed goon. These two teens feed into their own isolation complexes, crafting a truly unhealthy relationship that generates no heat or investment. The cherry on top is a last-minute reveal that will have readers scratching their heads and questioning everything that came before, but not in a good way. A dysfunctional romance about a dysfunctional romance. (Thriller. 12-16)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Geiger, A.V.: FOLLOW ME BACK." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2017. PowerSearch,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A487668649/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=b19eb421. Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487668649
5 of 5 1/28/18, 2:39 PM
Quoted in Sidelights: “a fantastic and addictive read.” “an excellent read” and “highly recommended.”
Follow Me Back by A.V. Geiger
Overall
Summary:
5
User Rating: 0 (0 votes)
First, a huge thank you to the publishers for sending me this book. It was a fantastic and addictive read that reminded me of Paper Princess by Erin Watt, but with a psychological edge.
This book is different stylistically than most I’ve read as a large part the story takes place through Twitter conversations and police transcripts. It was very well executed, with simple and sharp dialogue. The two main characters are very well drawn out. Although Tessa is infuriating at first because of her fear of leaving the house and her obsession with a rock star, her phobia and fixation make for an intriguing premise. And then there’s Eric Thorn, America’s heartthrob, Tessa’s heartthrob. I have to admit he quickly turned into my heartthrob too.
The only character who felt too simplistically sketched out was the antagonist. He comes out of nowhere. Even though I would definitely not take away any stars for this, I sort of wish he was mentioned—even just by name—at the beginning of the book. Yes, there were hints that something terrible had happened to Tessa in New Orleans, and that Twitter isn’t fool-proof (security-wise), but still…
And the ending! If you’re not a fan of cliffhangers, you might want to wait for book 2 to come out before reading Follow Me Back.
But all in all an excellent read! Highly recommended!
Quoted in Sidelights: “Eric and Tessa are stereotypes who could easily appear in a ‘How To Write Fanfic’ textbook,” “some refreshing twists,” “frustrated”
Follow Me Back
A.V. Geiger
Buy This Book
My grade for Follow Me Back bounced up and down like a dysfunctional pogo stick. One minute I felt a C would be a fair grade for what seemed to be not much more than grammatically correct fanfiction. A hundred pages later a particularly insightful moment bounced it back up to a B. I then reconsidered pushing it back down to a C because the characters were somewhat limited, only to rethink that when a plot twist took me by surprise. But a very frustrating ending solidified my decision to go low, indeed, it even caused me to add the minus as well, as a warning for anyone who needs real closure at the end of a story.
While away at a creative writing camp, eighteen-year old Tessa Hart experienced a traumatic event so severe it triggered a case of agoraphobia that has kept her trapped in her bedroom for months. Even opening the blinds causes her to spike into an anxiety-fueled panic. Her only tie to the outside world besides her mother, her boyfriend and her therapist is her complete and total devotion to pop star Eric Thorn. She spends hours following his career, writing fanfiction about him, collecting photos on her phone, and obsessing over any and all tweets from or about the YouTube star gone super-nova. The name Eric Thorn even serves as her mantra when she needs to calm herself down with deep breathing exercises. Despite the fact that her therapist explains that what she is doing is nothing more than projecting, Tessa swears that she can see in Eric’s expressions that he is fearful of something, that he’s in some kind of deep emotional pain. She can certainly relate to his feelings. Not that she’d ever have a chance to talk to the guy about it.
Eric Thorn is tortured. After a fellow pop star was murdered by an obsessed fan, Eric is absolutely terrified that his out-of-control fame is going to lead him to the same fate. It doesn’t help that his manager and record company require Eric to strut around half naked most of the time in order to keep his fans drooling. He hates that his career is no longer about making great music but rather more about strategic Twitter follower sprees and photo shoots and cheesy commercials. Too, Eric knows that his popularity is not based on anything of substance, and he feels resentment and disgust for the millions of girls who have fallen for nothing more than a set of six-pack abs.
Acting on frustration and impulse, Eric creates a fake Twitter account that he thinks he can use to paint himself as a narcissistic diva, unworthy of such blind devotion and lashes out at one of the up-and-coming members of his Twitter nation. @TessaHeartsEric doesn’t know him or care about the real person that he is, and he feels no guilt in calling her out for liking him just because of the pictures she sees online. Tess has no idea what inspired @EricThornSucks to attack her out of the blue. Her first reaction is to punch back at the online bully, but then she remembers that she doesn’t know this person’s story, and that maybe they are simply reaching out. To her surprise, the person on the other end of the Twitter posts is apologetic and seems to simply need a friend.
Over the next weeks and months, Eric and Tessa carry on digital correspondence, each of them finding comfort in the other. Tessa has no idea that she is speaking to the real Eric Thorn, and Eric is thrilled to find someone that he can trust to react to him. But Eric’s fans are as obsessive as ever. And Tessa’s agoraphobia shows no sign of improving.
Alternating between the present and events in the past and between Eric’s and Tessa’s points of view, their story is interwoven between excerpts of a police interrogation and the linear narrative of how the couple managed to connect in the first place, their growing virtual friendship, and the events that led up to the reason they both find themselves being questioned. Sprinkled heavily throughout the story are tweets between multiple characters, all of it building to a climax that deviates from the predictable.
For the first half of the story, I felt that I was reading a well-written fanfic. Eric and Tessa are stereotypes who could easily appear in a ‘How To Write Fanfic’ textbook. Eric is the proto-typical male pop star, with the perfect good looks, the sculpted body, the dreamy song lyrics and the charming smile, all manufactured to drive young girls crazy. In a slight twist, for a good long while, Eric is nearly unlikeable. His resentment and open contempt towards his fans is very off-putting. While I could understand his paranoia and his frustration that those fans loved nothing more than an image, he seemed to forget – or not even care – that they were the ones responsible for his success.
Tessa is the every-girl Mary Sue who could never imagine even meeting her crush, much less inspiring him to fall in love with her. I couldn’t imagine it, either. Because other than telling us from Eric’s point of view that Tessa makes him feel calm and peaceful, I never quite knew why he fell in love with her. Except that’s the whole premise of stories such as these; average girl inspires rock-god to fall madly in love with her.
As much as I tried to sympathize with Tessa’s mental illness, I found it increasingly frustrating that she couldn’t manage to leave her own room. Mostly this is a result of Geiger’s obvious intention to draw out the final reveal of Tessa’s traumatic experience until the last possible moment. I’m not a big fan of such manipulation, and if I had known what happened to the girl, I might have better empathized with her fear of the outside world. But to give Geiger some credit, when we do finally learn what happened to Tessa, her phobias make perfect sense. The author also manages to throw in some respectable red herrings that had me thinking that one course of events would happen only to be surprised when they didn’t. What began as a predictable plot definitely had some refreshing twists.
Given all of the above, I might have given this story a B-, but the ambiguous ending left me so frustrated that I seriously considered dropping my grade down to a D. I cannot give away any details, suffice it to say that after what is presumed to be a hopeful-for-now ending, a final scene is presented that offers the reader two plausible options for what happens next. The first time I read this scene, I had one idea of what had happened to Tessa and Eric. But after reading it again and considering other clues and the implausibility of my first conclusion, I came to a much darker, horrible supposition that rendered the entire story a horrific example of the unreliable narrator. I honestly don’t know which version is the correct one, but being left hanging in such a way diminished the story greatly.
If you enjoy fanfic that pairs celebrities with uber-fans, you may well enjoy this book. If you are a consummate tweeter who understands the strange politics of followers, following and followed, then you will probably appreciate this style of storytelling. If you need a happy ending with definitive closure, Follow Me Back will not please you at all.
Book Details
Reviewer : Jenna Harper
Grade : C-
Sensuality : Kisses
Book Type : Young Adult
Review Tags :
Quoted in Sidelights: “Quite frankly, I’m a little angry about the ending,” “But that doesn’t make it any less brilliant–it makes it even better.” “It’s unique, it haunting and it had me guessing at every turn.”
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REVIEW | FOLLOW ME BACK BY A.V. GEIGER
January 4, 2017
Follow Me Back
Title | Follow Me Back
Author | A.V. Geiger
Pages | 300 pages
Publisher | SOURCEBOOKS
Series | None
Release Date | June 1, 2017
Find it on Goodreads and Amazon
Tessa Hart’s world feels very small. Confined to her bedroom with agoraphobia, her one escape is the online fandom for pop sensation Eric Thorn. When he tweets to his fans, it’s like his speaking directly to her…
Eric Thorn is frightened by his obsessive fans. They take their devotion way too far. It doesn’t help that his PR team keeps posting to encourage their fantasies.
When a fellow pop star is murder at the hands of a fan, Eric knows he has to do something to shatter his online image fast—like take down one of his top Twitter followers. But Eric’s plan to troll @TessaHeartsEric unexpectedly evolves into an online relationship deeper than either could have imagined. And when the two arrange to meet IRL, what should have made for the world’s best episode of Catfish takes a deadly turn…
b-o-r-d-e-r
A.V. Geiger’s Follow Me Back is a twisted tale of lies, deception and stalking – told through the lives of Eric and Tessa, and multiple police reports. Lemme just admit right now that this book was an emotional roller-coaster. And I’m not talking about tears and stuff, oh no. I’m talking about mild heart attacks with every twist! If I had one word to sum up this novel? Brilliant.
The story is partly told from the point of view of Tessa, a teenage girl who suffers with agoraphobia. Let me just applaud the author right now, for slipping in awareness on phobias and anxiety. Much like A Quiet Kind of Thunder, anxiety awareness is on the rise this year, making Follow Me Back all kinds of relevant in the mental health and general illness bracket. However, it is rare to come across a book that openly discusses phobia. Very few authors encounter it, and it takes a special kind of person to be willing to discuss it. Some people do believe that those with serious phobias such as agoraphobia are just looking for sympathy. In reality, this is not the case. I adored how Follow Me Back shone a light in that direction – something that really puts this book on the map.
Plot wise, this story is original as hell. I have NEVER come across a novel, published or drafted, that has a style like this. It’s unique, it haunting and it had me guessing at every turn. Frequent readers of my blog will understand that this is my kind of book off the bat, and I could not be more proud to have read it in advance. Thank you, SOURCEBOOKS. But seriously, the year has only just kicked off, and while Follow Me Back is not released until June – it is already running for a top spot on the year’s best releases. How is that even possible?!
Major shout-out to the author, who started their writing journey on Wattpad. Yes, much like A Proscriptive Relationship or Textrovert, Follow Me Back has received millions of reads online before being approved to be published in real life. That takes major dedication and hard work. And considering the quality of the writing, I only hope that the author has more in the works. Because I’m eager to see more!
A brilliant thing about this story is the mystery element the story has. You have absolutely no idea what is going on or what has happened – but you’re immersed into a world of police reports and hidden meanings. Also, it was brilliant to read a novel that didn’t glamourize fame and fortune. Eric was real in his paranoia, and it really made my heart go out to him. I feel that too much of today’s youth have this idea that with fame comes all these fabulous perks, at the same time you get to avoid responsibility and retreat into your own little private bubble when you want to. Follow Me Back puts this to bed, through a smaller internal story (a cautionary tale of some sorts). It was interesting to read a book that understood both sides of fame, only making me like it even more.
Now I hope for my own sake that there will be a sequel to this in the near future. Everything you discover through-out the novel is thrown into question within the last few chapters, making you feel dazed and confused. My head hurts, my heart hurts and quite frankly, I’m a little angry about the ending. But that doesn’t make it any less brilliant – it makes it even better. I feel I have no other option but to award this story a hot five out of five. When this book hits the shops in June, it is sure to make a killing!
5 stars
Quoted in Sidelights: “definitely a train ride to crazy town but in the best possible way.”
Stacey Armand
Jun 6
Follow Me Back A.V. Geiger
Books
Happy Publishing Day to A.V. Geiger’s Follow Me Back!!! The synopsis: Tessa Hart’s world feels very small. Confined to her bedroom with agoraphobia, her one escape is the online fandom for pop sensation Eric Thorn. When he tweets to his fans, it’s like his speaking directly to her…
Eric Thorn is frightened by his obsessive fans. They take their devotion way too far. It doesn’t help that his PR team keeps posting to encourage their fantasies.
When a fellow pop star is murdered at the hands of a fan, Eric knows he has to do something to shatter his online image fast—like take down one of his top Twitter followers. But Eric’s plan to troll @TessaHeartsEric unexpectedly evolves into an online relationship deeper than either could have imagined. And when the two arrange to meet IRL, what should have made for the world’s best episode of Catfish takes a deadly turn…
This debut was definitely a train ride to crazy town but in the best possible way. I was completely sucked in and I read it in one sitting. Follow Me Back is an eye-opening account of obsessive fans, social media trends, and how easy it is for the lines of reality to blur for some people. I found Tessa to be absolutely crazy and towards the end I questioned her reliability as a narrator so I was completely thrown by the ending. WHAT??!!!! I don’t’ want to give any spoilers away but I will say that I NEED Book 2 today please so that I can know what happens next. 4.5 fantastic stars. Follow Me Back is out today, go grab a copy, read it and then let’s discuss!!! Thank you so much to Netgalley and Source Books for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.
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