Wendy Darling's Reviews > You Will Never Be Me

3.5 stars Author Jesse Sutanto has got to be the most fun date at any party. I’m ready to circle the room with her, drink in hand, as we smile our social smiles and surreptitiously let savage remarks drop as we pass. This is the second novel of hers I’ve read, and while a lot of books try to write toxic female friendships and professional rivalries, I’m not sure I’ve come across a popular author who skewers them in such an entertaining way.

This one is particularly interesting since its two protagonists are influencers. There are a fair number of thrillers doing this lately, but not many have so believably and relatably portrayed how online friendships can be so intense and personal, yet so rapidly spiral into a seething storm of bewildering resentment and pain. It's a strange disjunction that will be familiar to anyone who's spent any time online, how you can know a stranger's deepest and truest feelings contrasted with the distrust and disillusionment that can come with not having shared history and context. It’s also a fascinating look at the weaponization of social media, all done with ice-pick sharp observations and healthy side-eye at all of us who get wrapped up into it. If this author ever decided to delve more deeply into the themes she portrays in her satirical books with such light razor cuts, I’d be very interested in reading it.

As a mystery, the sudden big thing halfway through threw me for a loop, and it never really regained its believability for me, and the ending gets a pretty big shiny bow on it—and a few of the subplots I probably could have lived without. Still, the various relationships kept me interested and invested, and it’s always great to have more Asian-American stories that are just…stories. I love Sutanto’s writing and keen interest in human behavior, even if this particular plot wasn’t quite as gripping as I’d hoped.

Audio Notes: Literally drafting this on my phone, so I’ll look up the names later. But both audiobook narrators were fantastic.