tl;dr tiktokers but make it thriller
Premise
35 million followers. One dead body.
The six teenagers who make up the Hype House seem to have it all. A beach front Malibu mansion, millions of TikTok followers, model good looks, and sponsorship deals up to $30,000 per post. Everything's pretty much a Gen-Z paradise. Except that one member of the house has just turned up dead in the infinity pool. And the rest of them are suspects.
When the group TikTok account starts posting cryptic messages about the murder, the police limit their investigation to the members of the house. Now old joke videos are filed as evidence and past rivalries start to look like motives.
As investigators dig into these influencers' lives beyond their glossy internet personalities, they discover all five had reasons their lives would've been easier with Sydney Reynolds dead. But only one of them killed her.
Rating
3/5 stars
Review
i think the concept of this book is intriguing. it has a lot of potential. the whole idea of writing a book about influencers is something that could've never happened even 5 years ago, so it's very innovative in that way. however, i think the book had some issues with execution.
context: i'm a teenage tiktoker :D
from a character standpoint, the book has 6 POVs for the 6 tiktokers. i'm all for multiple POVs, but i think there were so many characters that it was hard to flesh out all of them. i would rather have a couple of the tiktokers fade into the background and highlight only a few of them, zeroing in on their development. i say this because i didn't see much development in the main characters other than near the end. i would've loved to see more buildup in this development (for all of the main characters).
the big plot twist of the book was again, an idea that had a lot of potential. i was relatively surprised by it (though i had my suspicions), but i think there were some plot holes/things i didn't like as much.
- lowkey spoilery critique: this is one of many books where mental illness is used as a "plot twist". someone's poor mental health should not be used for shock factor.
- VERY VERY spoilery critique: as someone who has a oddly large amount of twins as friends, it's not that hard to tell them apart even when they're identical. the fact that no one noticed the difference astounds me.
in terms of writing style, i'm kind of mixed about it. there's a whole bunch of pop culture references, which work well with the fact that these are 6 tiktokters, but when it comes to the longevity of this book, they don't work as well. i'm just thinking - if i read this book 5 years from now, a lot of these references (gymshark, addison rae, the renegade) i wouldn't remember or find "trendy". i think it's definitely possible to write a story about social media without a lot of pop culture references to show the current-ness of the story. lots of pop culture references in books are also just not my personal taste so take this with a grain of salt lmao.
Other Info
Standalone
14+
CW: death, gun violence, self-harm, suicide, depression, negative body image/comments about body image, triggering comments about food
Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Killer-Content-Underlined-Paperbacks-Roache/dp/0593427491/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Would I Recommend?
Yes, but you might have to suspend belief a bit
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