Follow Me Back by Nicci Cloke
Pages: 288
Publish date: February 4th 2016
Publisher: Hot Key Books
ISBN: 9781471405082
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU
Apparently, she’d met someone online, they write to each other in class, phones buzzing.
She ran away. She was taken.The first time Aiden Kendrick hears about Lizzie Summersall’s disappearance is when the police appear at his front door. He and Lizzie used to be friends; they aren’t anymore. And when Aiden finds out that Lizzie had been talking to strangers on Facebook; that the police think she went to meet one of them, he begins to wonder how well he ever really knew her, and Aiden doesn’t know it yet, but with Lizzie’s disappearance his life is about to take a twisted and desperate turn.
Follow Me Back
I received a review copy of Follow Me Back by Nicci Cloke from Hot Key Books in exchange for an honest review, this has in no way included my thoughts and feelings about the book.
When I asked to review this book, I was expecting it to blow my mind – however it fell short. I was waiting for something more, something big to happen and something did happen, but it was not what I was expecting and it was a letdown.
Follow Me Back follows Aiden as he deals with the disappearance of Lizzie Summersall. Aiden and Lizzie used to be friends – well more than friends and as the novel goes on we get to find out more information about the two of them.
I have a like/hate relationship with Aiden. I liked him at points, but he was really annoying. For a lot of the book he was just complaining. A girl was missing, a girl that he knew quite well. And all he cared about was about she wasn’t with him anymore. However, I did like that we predominately had a male protagonist. You don’t see that much in YA and it was interesting, in that sense.
I didn’t like that it changes POV in the middle of the book. Most of Follow Me Back is told from Aiden’s point of view, but then it changes to so many different people. It would have worked so much better if it was told just from Aiden’s.
I also didn’t like how the internet was portrayed in Follow Me Back. I understand where the author was coming from. The internet can be horrible, however the way that it comes across to me is everyone on the internet is horrible and that you should never meet people that you talk to online.
I found this unreal and annoying simply because I have met with people that I talk to online in real life. There are those who are not who they say they are, but not everyone.
I liked that the author used internet slag in Follow Me Back however, at times it got too much and I felt that I was reading old conversations my 14 year old self.
Even though this book was a ‘thriller,’ it was slow. The pace of the whole book was slow and took ages to find out what was really happening. Nevertheless, I liked how the book had many twists and turns. I had no idea who to believe, what to believe.
There were a few surprises here and there and I did like that, however there were other parts that were quite predictable.
The ending, sort of confused me. It was left kind of open ended and it some things did tie up, but there was so much left in the open especially between characters. I wanted to know more.
In saying that, I also felt disconnected from the characters of Follow Me Back. Aiden didn’t really have a character arc and there was no reason for me to connect with him. I also felt that way with Lizzie, I wanted to know what happened with her, however I didn’t really…care.
Overall, I enjoyed reading Follow Me Back it kept me entertained and focus while I was reading it. Though the main protagonist was annoying and acted like everything was about him, Follow Me Back does delve deep into the dangers of the internet and that sometimes it can be a dangerous place that can do harm.
Have you read Follow Me Back? What did you think of it? Are you going to read it? Let’s Chat.
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