Sharp, sinister, and savagely funny.
Quast’s spirited novel blends social-media satire with domestic drama and a steadily darkening mystery. Brook Salinger has spent most of her young life in front of a camera, trapped on her family’s wildly successful social-media channel and tormented by online bullies. Desperate to escape her controlling mother, Daphne, Brook strikes out on her own. But her bid for independence draws her toward unsettling forces, buried secrets, and a neighborhood mystery that may prove far more dangerous than anything she faced online.
Quast’s darkly comic story offers a sharp, timely satire of influencer culture, family exploitation, and the slippery line between authenticity and performance. Brook makes a sympathetic, convincing protagonist. Her complicated relationship with Daphne provides the story’s strongest emotional current, as maternal concern becomes increasingly difficult to separate from ambition, jealousy, and control. Quast surrounds this conflict with an eccentric suburban cast, an unsolved mystery, and a playful supernatural thread that steadily gathers menace. The busy narrative occasionally wanders among its numerous characters and subplots, but its wit and mounting tension keep the pages turning. A wickedly entertaining cautionary tale about the price of turning private life into public content.
***
Rick Johnston (Illustrator)
Pub date October 15, 2026
Print length 279 pages
ISBN 978-1069383891
Price $7.99 Kindle edition
