I will always read a book about an influencer, there is something endlessly interesting to me about the world’s obsession with social media influencers. The murder mystery wasn’t the most interesting part to me, it was the dynamics between the family. I can’t imagine growing up with the whole world watching my every move, it honestly sounds miserable and I liked that this looked at the dark side of social media. If you have a fascination with family vloggers like I do try this! Brit Pressley is one of the very best and she shines so bright here.

3.5 stars!

As a proud hater of family vlogging, I was on board for this. May Iverson, when I catch you...

There was a lot to love here. The dialogue and writing felt real, with some really funny lines among the heavier stuff. I loved all the siblings, but won't be naming my favorite. For spoiler reasons. If anyone reading this has read it - you'll probably know. The takes on mommy bloggers, family channels, and even true crime channels, were all really well done.

I think what is keeping it from being a four star or higher for me, is that the formula of it got a bit tedious. The leaked video reports every other chapter, and then not much happening elsewhere plot-wise. It was more family drama than mystery/thriller to me - which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I just found the repetition starting to stale and wishing more would actually happen in the current timeline, outside of the leaked videos.

It was still a fun read! I did enjoy myself and definitely intend on checking out more from this author.

DNF at 32%. This book couldn’t decide what it wanted to be, and at a third of the way through it really should’ve.

There are two stories here: first, the mystery surrounding the murder of a wealthy social media influencer and the investigation into the lives of those who have the means and motive. Second, the lives of young adults who were part of family vlogs as children and how that impacted their growth as individuals. Both of them would’ve been captivating to read, but they just don’t tie together well, at least not here.

The best parts of this were the interludes with the fans, their clowning (to borrow a term from the Swiftie community) to investigate the murder themselves and feeding into parasocial relationships.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, since it seems like something normally up my alley, but I just could not get invested or give a single fuck about any of these people.

Thank you to NetGalley, Anna-Marie McLemore, and The Dial Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

"Remember, you are already a good mom."

A family that relied entirely on documenting their lives for the public to see. A mom influencer that thrived on filming every reaction, moment and event from her children so she could curate her perfect life. Four daughters that paid for the price of reality fame and a dead husband that no one knows how he died. That's the life of the Iverson's that anyone and everyone wants to follow on now. Mother May I may be a brand that May Iverson has perfected, but did she really get her own signature line correct?

The concept of this story was what had me intrigued from the get go. I enjoyed the alternating POVs from the Iverson's and the chapters about the "followers", as if they were paparazzi/fan excerpts that helped tell this story. The sisters all had their masked personalities, much like their mother May did. What made them different was that beneath the layers of social media, grooming and pleasantries was that each sister had their own trauma from being in the public eye that they never recovered from. Their characters and POVs were my favourite moments in the book. May's moments were my least favorite and I wasn't surprised with how her demise came to be. The death and mysteries were a bit underwhelming and predictable, still entertaining and helped shape the plot to what it needed to be.

For fans of reality tv shows like The Kardashians and families in the spotlight, this one may be a good pick for you. I can only imagine what children of celebrities and reality stars go through after finishing this book.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House/The Dial Press for providing a digital copy for my honest opinion and thoughts!

📖 Title: The Influencers-a standalone

✍🏾 Author: Anna Marie McLemore-new to me author

📅Publication date: 4/15/25 | Read 4/10/25

📃 Format: e-Book 448 pgs.

Genre:
*Mystery/Thriller
*Contemporary

Tropes:
*whodunit
*family drama
*social media
*true crime
*social satire
*being biracial

👆🏾POV: 3rd person, multiple

⚠️TW: death of a spouse, arson, child exploitation, transitioning, infertility, secret identity, surprise pregnancy

🌎 Setting: CA

Summary: After twenty-five years of living in the spotlight, May and her daughters "The Iversons" deal with the fallout from May's husband August death where her daughters are all suspects.

🎭 Characters:

*August Ingraham-May's newlywed husband-murdered

*Ernesto Iniesta-May's ex-husband and father of all the kids

* May Iverson-53, matriarch of the family, creator of "Mother May I" social media empire

* April-29, the oldest sister, a businesswoman who is feuding w/ May over intellectual property

* June and July-26, twins that smile in May's face but threatens her spotlight, both also social media influencers

*January- 24, a theater tech, stays away from the spotlight, and is the black sheep of the family

*March-23, the youngest daughter, gone missing


🤔 My Thoughts: After getting all the characters straight, I enjoyed the commentaries on motherhood/sisterhood, social media, morality, and
how it manifested into the Iversons' adult lives. I enjoyed January and March's stories the most because they felt the most authentic. Even though the world building was sparingly addressed, the themes resonated with me.

Rating: 4/5 ✨
Spice level 1/5 🌶️

🙏🏾Thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group | The Dial Press, and Anna-Marie McLemore for this ARC! I voluntarily give my honest review, and all opinions expressed are mine alone.

I’m not an immediate fan of the writing style. It feels almost like a stream of consciousness, which isn’t my cup of tea. The chapters often felt like they were telling rather than showing, hindering my engagement with the book. The chapters either felt too long or not long enough. The pacing is slow because we actually know the passage of time that is occurring and the book tells rather than shows. The biggest disservice to the book, in my personal opinion, is the fact that it is marketed as a mystery. To me, the book is more of a fiction book that is meant to be a social commentary about influencer families that just so happen to have a mysterious death. I do, however, like the Iverson siblings. I think they are easy to empathize with and that even though we are shown some of their faults, their personalities as a whole show them as good people.

This book is outside of the typical genres I read, and unfortunately I had trouble connecting with the characters. I found the book to be much more of a character study than a mystery, the actual plot was the least developed aspect of the book. I also felt like this book was longer than necessary, and it took me a significant amount of time to get through it. That being said, the writing and setting was very entertaining and I could see this being adapted into a television show easily.

3.5 ⭐️ Okay this one was fun if not a little too realistic. Like I feel like I could see this happening in real life with actual influencers, which was both exciting and really crazy to think about.
When a famous mommy influencer’s husband is murdered and her house goes up in flames the suspects are none other than her five now-grown daughters. Each daughter having had their entire childhood commodified has a valid reason for doing it. Told through multiple (and I do mean MULTIPLE) perspectives, what unfolds explores race, class, family dynamics and gender/sexuality.
Like I said, I feel like this book comes at the right time because these conversations are unfolding right in front of us. That being influencers using their children for financial gain and the morality behind it. I really did like that aspect of the book. However, I did not enjoy the multiple pov in this one. I don’t feel like it helped move the story forward and we could’ve just gone with an omnipotent narrator. I also feel like the mystery of “whodunnit” was never really solved? I mean kind of.. but I needed more from that as well.

2.75 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and The Dial Press for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Expected Publication: April 15th, 2025

I reallyyy wanted to like this book but it unfortunately fell flat for me. The idea is very interesting, especially considering the rise of influencers and child exploitation on social media, but the execution didn’t work.

I liked the character descriptions at first, they really brought the characters to life, but it started to go downhill with the AMOUNT of descriptions. May and her children were described at the beginning… and then multiple times again throughout the book with the same repetitive details. And despite the amount of descriptions, the characters were very one-dimensional because all we learned about them was the most basic parts of their personalities.

The “mystery” is the main part of the plot and yet the least developed. We follow the lives of the Iversons after the murder of a character that we don’t know nor do we particularly care about, and neither do they. The book focuses more on the children’s feelings towards growing up in the spotlight than the actual murder. I do think it’s interesting to read from the POVs of people who grew up with their entire lives plastered on social media (especially with the upcoming Piper Rockelle documentary and her continuing to be exploited by her mother), I just wish it had been executed differently.

Thank you Netgalley & The Dial Press for an eARC ❤️

The book is about this mega-famous mom-fluencer, May Iverson, who built her entire brand on cute videos of her five mixed-race daughters—except now the girls are grown, and let’s just say they’re not exactly sending her Mother’s Day cards. Things go full dumpster fire when May’s shiny new husband turns up dead and their mansion burns to the ground. And the suspects? Oh, just the daughters who spent their entire lives being exploited for likes.
The sisters are a *mess* in the best possible way. There’s April, the corporate shark who’s basically a Disney villain in athleisure; the twins June and July, who smile for the camera while low-key plotting their mom’s downfall; January, the black sheep who’s *way* too good at disappearing when drama pops off; and March, the missing sister who may or may not be the puppet master behind everything.
What I loved is how the book balances over-the-top drama with real, cutting commentary about how messed up it is to monetize your kids’ childhoods. There’s a scene where one of the sisters finds old footage of herself crying as a kid—only to realize her mom edited it into a “relatable parenting struggle” vlog—that actually made me put the book down and stare at the wall for a minute. 😞
If you love messy families, true crime vibes, and stories that make you side-eye every “perfect” Instagram mom, this is your next obsession.👍🏽

DNF at ~20%. Just really couldn't deal with the writing style. I think if you like books with a bit of kitsch you'd enjoy it but I'd also recommend about 10 other books before this one really,

Who killed May's husband August and set her house on fire? That's the question that the multiple narrators of this satiric mystery and critique of the influencer culture struggle to answer. May made her money off her daughters-January, March, April, June, and July-but they're grown up now. Oh, and March has gone missing. There's a greek chorus of sorts from the online community which is actually pretty snarky. This zips along until it becomes a bit tiresome in spots but then it picks up again. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. How much you enjoy it might depend on how attuned you are to the influencer community but at its heart it's the story of an unhappy family.

this defiantly was a book for all the juicy thriller girlies. I loved the multiple points of the story however the names of the daughters I thought was a bit confusing at parts. Also I thought a few of the twists were kinda give aways based of some of the bread crumbs.

This really made me think of the Kardashians and Kim Jenner as their manager/momager, whatever she is. It was an interesting murder mystery/thriller, but the pacing really was a bit off for me. Although, I do think I am going to explore more books by Anna-Marie McLemore. This one has intrigued me and I want to explore more of their work. 3 stars is not bad, just not my favorite book. But I am sure they have one I will enjoy even more if this is far from their first novel.

The stepfather of a Kardashian-like family is murdered but who did it?

This book has a large family of influencers, all with names of months. I found this to be very confusing when it should have been a fun gimmick. The author does very little to distinguish the characters from each other and I found myself not caring about any of them. Unfortunately, I didn't find this book to be very good but hopefully it'll find its better audience.

this has a really interesting core but i got really easily confused with all the month names at the beginning (i get the point but still), and in the end, everything was still not quite solved and that annoyed me

thank you netgalley for an arc of this in exchange for my honest feedback

I am a fan of Anna-Marie McLemore's writing and read as well as taught from her YA books for many years. Their venture into writing for adults is very intriguing! At first, the subject of a Kardashian-like influencer family surprised me. However, a social satire that takes on privilege, wealth, race, and the gendered pressures of society is absolutely the type of story McLemore takes on; they usually do it through the retelling of a fairy tale or a compelling rewrite, such as their take on The Great Gatsby, SELF-MADE BOYS: A GREAT GATSBY REMIX, which was fantastic. Seeing this wealthy influencer family through the eyes of the author made for a great read and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I did struggle to keep the characters clear in my head and it took some time to acclimate to the short chapters from so many POVs. Maybe one or two fewer POV characters would have been helpful, but I'm not sure whose perspective should be cut; they all added something to the THE INFLUENCERS. This book is not my favorite by McLemore, but I look forward to seeing what they do with adult fiction next.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House / Dial Press for providing a digital arc.

I had high hopes for this, but sadly, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I initially hoped I would. It is a semi take on the Kardashians and really had a lot of promise but found the story dragged. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if it just hadn’t been so bogged down in length.

This probably deserves closer to 4 stars, but the difficulty level is definitely a 10, so I’m pretty impressed that the author was as successful as they were.

This is my favorite Anna-Marie McLemore novel so far. I have not hated anything they’ve written, but nothing has impacted me as much as this did. It’s a social satire centered on May Iverson (a reality star/social media influencer who is a combination of Martha Stewart and Mother Kardashian. But she manages to be even less likable than that description implies). May is among the first generation of influencers, and her 5 children are on display for all the world to see through every aspect of their lives. The mystery part of the story, (there’s a murder), isn’t nearly as interesting as the way these 5 children react to their mother’s manipulations.

There are a couple of issues, mainly being that it’s too long and there are way too many POVs. But I don’t know whose POV I would cut, so I can’t complain too much. At first it was confusing to figure out who was who and which child was responsible for which action. But once I got familiar with them, I was wholly invested. The ending was so satisfying.

Social satire tends to be polarizing, but I think McLemore did a great job asking tricky questions and making often unlikable characters worth rooting for.

📚 ARC BOOK REVIEW 📚

The Influencers By Anne-Marie McLemore
Publication Date: April 15, 2025
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group | The Dial Press

📚MY RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Random House, The Dial Press, and NetGalley for this #gifted e-ARC of the book in exchange for my honest review!

📚MY REVIEW:

The Influencers is a whodunnit mystery involving a fictional influencer family, offering a behind-the-scenes perspective into our society's obsession with the influencer culture and our inherent need to cultivate perfection through our online personas.

“Mother May I” Iverson spent twenty-five years building a massively successful influencer empire with endearing videos featuring her five mixed-race daughters. But the girls are all grown up now, and the ramifications of having their entire childhoods shared with the world are starting to spill over into public view, especially in light of the pivotal question: Who killed May’s newlywed husband and then torched her mansion to cover it up?

Initially, this one was shaky for me. The book almost felt like it began its story about ten chapters in, with very little context or backstory to understand how we got to where we were. It took a while to get into this one because I felt like I was supposed to understand more than I did. However, the pace of the book settled in about 30% of the way in, and I was sucked into the salaciousness of this story. It was like watching a slow motion implosion of your favorite reality-tv family, you know the reality family you've always loved to watch while also kinda secretly hoping there would be a huge scandal. It was tough to find a consistently likeable character here, but there was depth to some of the characters that - at the very least - evoked empathy.

The book was told in alternating short chapters of multiple POVs, which took time to get used to. There was the perspective of the general public who obsessively watched years of the family's online vlogging, interspersed with the alternating perspectives of each family member. Once I got accustomed to the way the POVs were shared, it was a really enjoyable way for the story to be told because I got to know the inner thoughts of each family member, while simultaneously watching the effects of the situation on the family's devoted followers.

There were some twists and surprises in this mystery that I didn't see coming, as well as a few I did. While this is definitely more whodunnit mystery than thriller, I believe a huge strength of this book is its intelligent and insightful commentary on the impact the influencer culture is having on our society today. This book may not be everyone's cup of tea, but overall, I really ended up enjoying it.

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