Synopsis:
Aaron Fortin is new in town. He drives a brand-new Acura—a gift from his parents for uprooting him in the middle of senior year. Showing up on his first day at the local public school in that nice of a car? He knows he’ll never blend in, and he doesn’t care to try. The car, the new kid mystique, he can use all that…
Crystal Giordano carpools to the same school in her friend Trevor’s beat-up van. In the van along with Crystal and Trevor are Paul, Harmony, and Gayle. Crystal’s technically part of their misfit group, but most of the time, she feels like she’s the only one who doesn’tfit.
When Aaron Fortin sits at their lunch table, Crystal can see he’s not who he says he is. But how big of a fraud is Aaron Fortin? Crystal clumsily exposes Aaron and becomes his target, falling victim to his insidious campaign to erase her. Only then does she discover who he truly is—and it’s so much worse than she thought.
As her friends begin to follow him one by one, Crystal wonders if she can protect them or if his influence is just too strong.
Review:
I was sent a copy of Influencer in exchange for an honest review.
If you’re looking for a book with a narrator you will not like this is for you. It’s partially told from the perspective of Aaron aka ‘The Speaker’, and he is a complete psychopath. The vast majority of the book is following Aaron as he joins a new school and begins to use his influence to bring out the worst in some of the kids he meets. This is a YA horror so it is centred around high school kids, but it can stand up pretty well against some adult thriller/horrors.
It starts with a scene that really introduces you to the influence people have over others. For almost no rhyme or reason a group of teenagers commit a horrific crime against a family. Its an event that hangs over the rest of the book as you wait to see where things are going. The middle part slows a bit as the book shifts it’s focus to Aaron and his new-found ‘friend’ group, and how those relationships develop as she slowly reveals his true self. It may be a slower section but for me I really enjoyed watching these relationships develop as as a reader I was so aware of how awful Aaron was and the tactics he was using to get his way.
This really is a book about influence. How social media and people can hold influence over others and the things they can get people to do using that. That in itself is a form of horror as while this is an extreme example you can see how events like this may come to pass.
This is a horror that never touches the supernatural, it is firmly situated in reality and it’s in the knowledge that this could happen that the real horror lies. I’d place this in thriller/horror, you know that category where it’s not really either but kind of both? It’s addictive and you’ll find yourself reading late into the night.
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