Follow Me
Recently, I saw two films that fall into the hybrid horror category. Both The Substance (2024) and Companion (2025) weave satire and searing social commentary into their very graphic over-the-top horror narratives. The novel Follow Me, written by Elizabeth Rose Quinn, reminded me of those movies. The book is similar in tone and snark. Its plot zeros in on the rabid desire to be a social media presence. The focus is on pressured young mothers, who feel isolated and undervalued, succumbing to the allure of being deemed an influencer. Like the two films I mentioned, things get taken to extremes. Author Quinn serves up so many quotable quips that it was hard to choose which ones to include in this review. Suffice to say, this blood-soaked romp had me laughing amidst the considerable carnage.
Structurally, the novel is told from the points of view of fraternal twin sisters. The reader is briefly introduced to Chiara, a mother of twin fourteen-month-old boys. Chiara has won a coveted ticket for an exclusive Northern Californian mommy influencer retreat hosted by mega-influencer Thea. Thea is perfection personified. She is cool and collected yet exudes warmth, excels at crafts and creative endeavors. A mothering Martha Stewart who towers above all the wannabes: “The summit was to serve as the adult style springboard, a Pinterest page come to life and pumped full of steroids for every mom to replicate as soon as she got home.”
When Chiara goes missing, her troubled sibling Adrienne goes ballistic. The two sisters have had several disagreements and Adrienne, who has substance abuse issues, has a major guilt hangover. Taking matters into her own hands, she goes undercover (she’s single and has no progeny) to another Thea-orchestrated summit months after Chiara’s disappearance. For the sardonic nonconformist Adrienne this is a stretch. After a group leader looks over the attendees and says what a diverse group they are, Adrienne notes: “Nearly every woman was white, between a size 0 and a size 6, had long hair, was visibly wealthy (engagement rings, subtle nose jobs, recently facial’d skin), and was positively chattering with anticipation. The only thing less diverse than this group was a eugenics pamphlet.” The summit she attends is Halloween themed, rendering Adrienne astounded by the intricacy of the decorations: “Every pumpkin had been painted some combination of cream, bronze, or a marble effect of both, to match the crisp cotton table settings. Silk witch hats seemingly floated through the air, as they had been expertly hung on the thinnest fishing line, invisible to the diners below. There was even an eight-strand braid of corn-husk leaves as a table runner, like a desiccated challah from Gluten-Free Hell.”
Competition among the women for Thea’s seal of approval becomes cutthroat…in the literal sense. The subsequent mayhem is gory and intentionally excessive. And giggly, too, especially in the scene in which the playing of an Adele song mobilizes the frenzied hordes. This is a bit of a running joke, since Adrienne puts on an Adele recording to further the inebriation and loosen the tongues of a group of attendees.
While extreme horror and humor are rampant throughout the narrative, there are also sections which are sensitive and thought provoking. After arriving at the event, Chiara ruminates on aspects of being a mother: “Of course, being away from her children felt like having a phantom limb; she kept reaching out to see if she could feel them bobbing around her knees. The combination of relief and guilt when their chubby hands weren’t there to take hers was heady. She couldn’t tell whether she felt like she had been away from them for ten years or ten seconds. She never wanted to go home, and she was desperate to see their little faces again. How both things were true, she didn’t quite know.”
The minor complaint I have with the book is some abrupt changes in pacing. There are jerky shifts from a stately/slow gait to sudden rapid acceleration. That criticism aside, I very much enjoyed Follow Me, published by Thomas & Mercer. Elizabeth Rose Quinn’s intelligent irreverence displays a flair for being incisive and droll. It makes me want to read more of her writing.
