When Kansas sweetheart Maggie Lathrop is crowned the winner of America’s most popular dating show, her life is transformed overnight.
Suddenly, Maggie has it all: a gorgeous husband, an immaculate Los Angeles mansion, and an entourage of glamorous friends.
Despite picture-perfect appearances, the world Maggie has created is shattered after she’s found murdered in a desolate warehouse.
As her sister, Emma, attempts to uncover the truth about Maggie’s life, a deadlier side to Hollywood is revealed.
Suddenly, Maggie has it all: a gorgeous husband, an immaculate Los Angeles mansion, and an entourage of glamorous friends.
Despite picture-perfect appearances, the world Maggie has created is shattered after she’s found murdered in a desolate warehouse.
As her sister, Emma, attempts to uncover the truth about Maggie’s life, a deadlier side to Hollywood is revealed.
Review:
What a way to enter the literary world kicking and screaming. Stewart’s Debut novels offers a defiant, dark thriller with wickedly clever undertones and sharp social commentary about power, fame, the court of public opinion and influencer culture. And damn, talk about an opening line.
Maggie was an intriguing character - there’s something deeply unsettling about knowing one of your main narrators is setting the stage for our death, showing us the past, behind the scenes in ‘reality tv’, her life leading up to the end. The dramatic irony almost painful at times. What’s worse is, we love her, and watch as she loses her personality that we’ve come to care for, her thoughts full of reality TV, PR boxes and likes. I thought I hated this for a moment, furious she became a vaguely sexist stereotype but in a way this was also genius, because Maggie herself lost her way in the pursuit of fame.
But her end is the start of the story for our other characters. She shares narration duties with her sister’s Emma, Emma’s best friend Jill, and Jill’s tv mogul boss, Amanda. Mingling their lives in the months after Maggies death, navigating grief and the investigation, it starts slowly before kicking it up a notch and bringing the intensity. Each of them bringing a slightly different view to the tragedies, the chaos and the optics of the entire situation and their lives slowly start to click together as we see the ties between them explained and watch them all get drawn into an investigation- three women, their lives affected by one horrific event in such different ways. Did the ending feel a little obvious? I guessed the answers, and everything ended a little quietly but the journey there was so much fun.
Maggie was an intriguing character - there’s something deeply unsettling about knowing one of your main narrators is setting the stage for our death, showing us the past, behind the scenes in ‘reality tv’, her life leading up to the end. The dramatic irony almost painful at times. What’s worse is, we love her, and watch as she loses her personality that we’ve come to care for, her thoughts full of reality TV, PR boxes and likes. I thought I hated this for a moment, furious she became a vaguely sexist stereotype but in a way this was also genius, because Maggie herself lost her way in the pursuit of fame.
But her end is the start of the story for our other characters. She shares narration duties with her sister’s Emma, Emma’s best friend Jill, and Jill’s tv mogul boss, Amanda. Mingling their lives in the months after Maggies death, navigating grief and the investigation, it starts slowly before kicking it up a notch and bringing the intensity. Each of them bringing a slightly different view to the tragedies, the chaos and the optics of the entire situation and their lives slowly start to click together as we see the ties between them explained and watch them all get drawn into an investigation- three women, their lives affected by one horrific event in such different ways. Did the ending feel a little obvious? I guessed the answers, and everything ended a little quietly but the journey there was so much fun.
"I still have this suspicion that everyone hates me. Which I know is paranoid. Except maybe it's not paranoid?"
A nervous energy lingered throughout this story, the cold inevitability of watching Maggie so full of life while parallel we watch three new companions desperately try to solve her murder as everything starts to distort and every turn just hints at something dark being around the corner.
The way this book tried to process and delve into modern influencer culture was brilliant. The dreadful juxtaposition of brutal murder and people worried about their PR offering an atmosphere that made me want to uncomfortably laugh at its absurdity and hiding their own sexuality, wants, feelings in exchange for likes. The loss of personality, the monetisation of every aspect of your life, the pretending and consuming and how easy it can be to be consumed yourself by the pressure cooker of modern media — it definitely made you think about the strange phenomenon of fame for fames sake and how we consume media.
I think we’ll be seeing much more of Catriona Stewart in the future.
A nervous energy lingered throughout this story, the cold inevitability of watching Maggie so full of life while parallel we watch three new companions desperately try to solve her murder as everything starts to distort and every turn just hints at something dark being around the corner.
The way this book tried to process and delve into modern influencer culture was brilliant. The dreadful juxtaposition of brutal murder and people worried about their PR offering an atmosphere that made me want to uncomfortably laugh at its absurdity and hiding their own sexuality, wants, feelings in exchange for likes. The loss of personality, the monetisation of every aspect of your life, the pretending and consuming and how easy it can be to be consumed yourself by the pressure cooker of modern media — it definitely made you think about the strange phenomenon of fame for fames sake and how we consume media.
I think we’ll be seeing much more of Catriona Stewart in the future.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
- People Pleaser will be available from May 22nd with Random House UK/Cornerstone. I was gifted a reviewers copy of this title.
- Content including death, violence, sexual assault and addiction.
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