Sofa Spotlight - Follow Me Back, Nicci Cloke

So this YA has been out for a while but I only just got around to reading it. I picked it up because it was one of the top YA picks for 2016 (yes it has taken me three years to get around to it, but better late than never).

And it’s good, fast paced and intriguing. It deserves to be one of those top picks. The background to the storyline is all about social media and the persona that you present to the world. Whether that’s the real you or not. And if you’ve ever seen the show Catfish there are elements from that that you will recognise.

So the premise is that Lizzie has gone missing after apparently meeting up with someone she met online. Her friend Aiden is the one telling most of the story and he is trying to figure out which version of Lizzie is real – the one he was friends with at school, or the one he now sees on social media. He also begins a campaign with his friend Scobie to try and work out what happened to Lizzie, but for a while that feels like a hopeless cause.

Aiden is an unreliable narrator, but he didn’t freak me out as much as most unreliable narrators do. The Girl on the Train was a bit much for me (yes I am a wimp). But maybe it’s because he’s fairly stable despite having some temper issues. For me the way the backstory of Aiden and Lizzie’s relationship is revealed was brilliant. There was just enough to keep you reading but when the reveal happens you have an “oh yeah that makes sense” moment.

There’s some great twists in this that I didn’t see coming and I didn’t guess the ending either. You know a twist is good when you look back at what you’ve been reading and the story so far and think “well that completely changes how I see that.”

Just to show how behind the times I am on this book last summer Cloke’s latest book Toxic came out, and I’m looking forward to reading that at some point – hopefully not in three years’ time. I liked this more than the other YA books I’ve read recently (13 Minutes and Bullet Catcher) and although it shared some stylistic elements with 13 Minutes like chapters made up of emails or text messages, I found Follow me Back to be the more believable of the two, if a little less creepy and disturbing. The only part that I didn’t feel completely convinced by was the ending, but given that it was completely unexpected I think that can be forgiven.

But enough from me. It’s one you need to read for yourself.