Review: Hate Follow

Hate Follow by Erin Quinn-Kong
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publication date -October 8th 4.5 stars rounded up.

If you belong to a book club, be sure to get this book for discussion. This is a powerful look into internet privacy, influencers, and the first generation of kids to have their whole lives spread out on the 'net for strangers to follow...whether the kids want it out there or not.

Although sometimes clumsily written with secondary and tertiary storylines that aren't always necessary, it is worth the read.

This story tells us about one family ( a widowed mother, twins, a teenager, and a boy who never knew his father) who is in the social media spotlight. The mom is an influencer who lays it all out there for the world to see, even pictures of her dead husband in his coffin. The mom makes a great living off of her posts etc. But this also tells the story of her teenage daughter, who has had enough of her privacy being invaded. And the daughter takes some drastic steps to get her mother to stop.

I have to say that at first, I was against what the daughter was trying to do; after all, the mom was trying her best to keep her family afloat. I'm from that nasty generation who sometimes still feels that children should be seen and not heard!

This is definitely one book that will be discussed...a lot.


*ARC was supplied by the publisher William Morrow Paperbacks, the author, and NetGalley.

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SYNOPSIS:"To her one million Instagram followers, influencer Whitney Golden’s life looks just about perfect. But her curated existence explodes when her teenage daughter Mia sues her for invasion of privacy. The monumental case throws their relationship into a tailspin and has mother and daughter grappling with what it truly means to be in the public eye.

Influencer Whitney Golden has it all: beautiful, photogenic children; a handsome new boyfriend; a gorgeous house; and designer clothes and beauty products that arrive on her doorstep every day. After spending years building her brand as a widowed mother of four (including twins!) to over a million followers, the thirty-seven-year-old is at the peak of her career.

But it all comes to a screeching halt when Mia, her teenaged daughter, announces she’s tired of the social media life. She wants nothing more to do with her mother’s online brand—and demands that not just she, but her siblings and their deceased father be removed from Whitney’s Instagram, blog, and just about everywhere else on the internet.

When Whitney doesn’t agree, Mia does the unthinkable: She sues her mother. What started as a family spat turns into a monumental case about child privacy, individual agency, and modern parenting that shatters Mia and Whitney’s relationship and wreaks havoc on both their lives. As the case ignites a media firestorm and unrelenting online bashing from a Greek chorus of internet snarkers, Whitney has to decide whether she’s willing to risk everything she’s built to win back her daughter.

For fans of Emily Giffin and Kathleen West, Hate Follow is a sparkling and engaging debut novel that explores whose story parents are allowed to tell and how this generation of kids may revolt when they realize their entire lives have been shared online without their consent."