Ten influencers are chosen to compete on Influencer Island. The idea is that they will become (more) famous, attract more followers and more sponsors and merch will follow. The publisher compares Influencer Island to the Hunger Games. The differences are many, the main one being that Katniss was likeable.

Mysterious, Banksyesque artist Wyatt James is the masterpiece behind Influencer Island. Podcaster Cal (the story is told through podcasts and interviews) has his own reasons for wanting to unmask James. Another plotline follows influencers Cassie and Kiara on the island. Cassie is searching for her missing brother Tuck. Then Cassie and Angel have a storyline as do Cal and his father. Confused? I sure was.

I really wanted to like this book. Anything classified as “Horror | Mystery & Thrillers | True Crime” catches my eye. So what went wrong? It’s hard to be sympathetic to “influencers” and there are ten of them here. The plot and timelines are hard to follow. Wyatt James was cartoonishly, unrealistically evil. 3 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Greater Path LLC and Kyle Rutkin for this ARC.

4⭐

This was such a fast paced thrill ride. I loved the format of this book. It Made it even more enjoyable to read. I was truly engaged in the characters and story the whole time.
What would you do for followers and fame?
The world's top influencers are about to find out. Welcome to Influencer Island! This competition will show your true self.
How far is too far to get followers, and even become infamous? What will these influencers learn about themselves?
All of these questions and more will unfold in the ultimate podcast of this savage competition. Such a great read, and a fun experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Influencer Island was an interesting take on reality tv turned deadly. Similar to Daisy Jones, it was written in podcast format. With a very dark tone, Influencer Island had a lot of promise. Although the plot jumped around a lot and it caused some confusion, I was able to mostly piece it together. I really love how this book explored the dark side of influencers!

Review to come September 5th to Goodreads/blog.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

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This book sounded amazingly awesome and I just had to click request. I was so excited that I was selected! And yesterday (12th July) I just couldn't sleep (too warm/not feeling too well) and so I decided this one would be a nice read while I wait for sleep to come. I have to say there were points that I really loved and things I was definitely not a fan of. In the end I just cannot rate the book higher than two stars. :(

I will be doing a good/not good review because otherwise it gets so chaotic.

💕I loved that it was about an island in the middle of nowhere and something gruesome had happened. For me the best horror and thriller take place at an island. You cannot easily escape the place already, but with how Wyatt has his soldiers trained good luck getting anywhere AT ALL.
💕Carrie was an interesting MC. At times a bit cringy, but I did like her drive and loved that she was dedicated to her brother (OK, maybe she was a bit too dedicated). I was proud that she never gave up. Many people when faced with sharks or someone about to murder you would not do what Carrie did.
💕The challenges. They were really fucked up. The sharks. The murder.
💕The cover was really good.
💕The title was nice.
💕Loved how scary at times it got and how craycray Wyatt was and how far he went for his art.
💕While I wasn't a fan of how people reacted to the stuff happening on Influencer Island... it was pretty realistic. I could see this happen in real life. That is kind of bad, haha.
💕What happened with the models at the start of it all. Poor girls!

🙄Wasn't a fan of Cal at all. Not at all. I mean, if he was just in the back I wouldn't have minded it, but with each new part he became a bigger part of the mystery of Wyatt and frankly? I couldn't give a dip about it.
🙄NFTs. Fuck that.
🙄The whole plotline that seemed straight out of the darkest places of the internet... or the local conspiracy nuts. I mean, at points I just had to re-read or scratch my head and wonder what the fuck was going on and why.
🙄The plotline also confused me greatly. Especially in the beginning when I was like, why are we researching everything under the sun. Just let me go to the island.
🙄Didn't really care about the mystery of Tuck or Wyatt. OK, Wyatt maybe, but not in this big big format. It mostly took away from the island stuff and that is what I signed up for.
🙄It was supposed to be a podcast... well, it just felt more like someone decided that a script-format would look cool. At times there was the clear feel of a podcast, but at times I just didn't see it anymore, which is a shame.
🙄The ending. WTF.
🙄How everyone just went with things. Oh, scary island. Let's go. Oh, there are threats. Let's go. I mean, a lot of these influencers had the chance to say a big fat NOPE to it all, but instead they went with it.
🙄How the POV just kept changing each paragraph or so. It was so utterly confusing. I mean, one moment I was with Carrie and cheering for her and hoping she wouldn't die, and the next we are with Cal. I think that maybe it would have also worked if the names were much more different.
🙄How Wyatt just seemed to get away with so many things. I mean there were so many bad things surrounding him and in the mean time it seemed no one cared.
🙄Such unlikeable characters, but I can forgive that for most, fits with the horror theme, haha. Though some people. ARGH.
🙄Given the stuff from the beginning I had definitely expected WAY WAY more death.

🤔There were various errors in the texts. Mostly with names (Gigi or is it Kiki? Kaylyn or is it Kendall?) but also some other things that had me re-reading bits to makes sense of it.

All in all, as I said there were points that were fantastic, it was great horror at times. But the whole conspiracy stuff, the twist at the end, the whole the plot seemed so chaotic, not such fun characters... I was not a fan.

Vibes: Fyre Festival, Nerve, Battle Royale. Cults. Evil Banksy.

Do you remember when Tiger King came onto Netflix? And you watched each episode like "What the f*ck? This can't get crazier!" But then it did? Over and over again. 2020 was a bad year for everyone but I remember how this show, and many more made in this same style, made me feel. Excited and just utterly obsessed.
Now, why am I going on about Tiger King? Because this whole book is written like one of those documentaries! Told from multiple accounts telling their side of the story, unravelling it page by page. More mysteries and surprizes you dont expect throughout. It's that same energy!

I was SO captivated the whole time, it has been a LONG time since I felt this excited about a book. Each character felt alive and believable and all my questions were answered by the end of the book which is always a relief.

Amazing concept but the book itself still needs a little work in my opinion. I came across a few grammatical errors and name changes (like Kendall instead of Kaylyn, or Gigi instead of Kiki). I didn't like how it was obvious who some of the characters were based on in real life.

This would have been infinitely better if the author focused more on the action scenes, like the shark scene. I loved it. It was such an original scene and I wish there was more of it. I couldn't care less about Cal - Carrie is a much more interesting character to focus on.

This was a complete rollercoaster. The book is written like a podcast, more specifically a true crime podcast. I love those so I couldn’t wait to dive in. I am not going to lie, reading a podcast is very different then listening to one. There were a lot of different characters and pov’s, which made it kinda difficult to understand who was saying what. I am not the best at remembering names so sometimes it was a bit of a fog, but WOW. This book was fenomenal. I have never read something like this before. It was fun, thrilling, fast-paced and new. It picks up speed through the book. What would u do for fame? Definitely an eye opener in this day and age.

Wyatt James is legendary in the art world and beyond. Their art installations are incendiary and infamous…and then along comes Influencer Island. There will be ten contestants and they will be given the opportunity to party with the world’s most established influencers and celebrities. The number of likes and followers on their socials will soar. The contest is streamed on social media and soon it’s clear not all is as it seems on the island. Some contestants go live to warn people the island is a trap. The streaming shuts down and in the aftermath many of the contestants have disappeared and others are found dead. Grisly portraits appear. What on earth happened on Influencer Island? Can the transcript of an unaired podcast provide the truth?

Okay, I will totally hold my hands up and say I requested the book because a loathe the term “influencer” and all the nonsense that goes with it. So, the blurb was right up my street. I really enjoyed the book, particularly the epistolary style with the transcripts of the podcast. It was a gripping read and I raced through it to get answers. For me, the ending was perhaps the weakest part of the book as I didn’t really buy in to the explanation or motivation behind Influencer Island. Having said that, I really enjoyed going along for the ride and trying to work out what happened. I would definitely read this author’s work again.

Thank you to Kyle Rutkin, Greater Path and Netgalley for the opportunity to review an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Welcome to Influencer Island, an art installation created by infamous street artist Wyatt James. An experience for ten competitors to travel to paradise and compete for social media glory. Overnight, millions of users send off their submission videos, hoping for the chance to party with the biggest influencers and celebrities in the world.

Or so they thought…

By the time the contest went offline, several influencers were declared dead or missing. No winner was announced. The only hope for a conclusion lay in an unaired podcast produced by Cal Everett, a young reporter with his own mysterious connection to the contest creator.

With the world waiting, Cal recounts his investigation into Wyatt James, and how an aspiring influencer from Orange County named Carrie Andrews became the key to unlocking the contest’s secrets.

As listeners will soon find out, Wyatt James designed Influencer Island to be more than a battle of social media savvy. If the contestants hope to survive, they will have to answer the question at the very heart of the competition: How far would you be willing to go for fame?
Really enjoyed this book totally recommend I couldn’t put it down totally gripping
Thank You NetGalley and Greater Path LLC
I just reviewed Influencer Island by Kyle Rutkin. #NetGalley

I am so, so glad the author's note mentioned the format in which this was written, because I found it fascinating! A true crime documentary podcast, effectively, chronicling an even more perverse and scary version of Fyre Island that's more like the Hunger Games... hosted by Banksy. This was a wild ride and was a super quick (1 day) read for me - I couldn't put it down!

Wow. Just wow. This book was excellent. I loved the format of this book. While it took me a minute to get used to it, the experience it provided was unparalleled.
What would it be like if your life depended on your followers?
this book was wonderful.

So what if your life actually depended on likes and followers? No, like literally. That is essentially what’s happening in Influencer Island. How far would you go to be famous?
A bunch of top influencers are invited to an exclusive island and a further 10 influencers compete to be chosen to also a tend a mysterious competition to held on this island by a mysterious artist akin to Banksy. But everyone quickly realises, this competition is darker than it seems and it ties in to a larger mystery connecting everyone in this scheme!
I want to start with the plot. I feel like this plot was unique and so relevant to the culture we all live in as a society. It has so much potential, however, I feel like there was just way to much going on for a book this short, and because of that, a lot of the links felt forced together. There was the Carrie and Tuck plot and then Carrie and Angel, and Cal and his father and then the Wyatt James and his cult and yet somehow all of these seemingly different things come together. In a longer book where each of these plots could be fully fleshed out, I feel like that link would’ve been mind blowing!! But because this book was so short I was just left feeling like the connections were flimsy and forced. The short length of the book and the many plot lines ensured that it was very fast paced which is great but I think it would’ve been even better slightly slower paced to really flesh out the plot.
I also feel like the characters weren’t fully fleshed out. You got to know them, but not enough of who they are and background knowledge, that you cared about all the crazy things that were happening to them or even understood their motivations for making certain choices. It felt superficial. They were also way to calm throughout this book. They weren’t showing the emotion you’d expect them to be showing within the situations. I know this is meant to be a commentary on how desensitized we are and how for some drama and sensation we’d look the other way but I’m not talking about the viewers, but more so the investigators and the authorities.
Carries reason for going seems to change throughout the book which also through me off a bit and made me not fully like her character at times.
I believe that if we got to maybe hear more from Wyatt James a lot of the reasoning and insanity would’ve made more sense. It would still be crazy, but If you could see into the mind of the crazy person, understand more of what lead him to develop this weird cultish mindset and methodologies then maybe I’d understand why certain links were made. The bit we got at the end was not enough. It explained what happened to make him snap, but not why he developed this cultish style thinking with the weird rituals and stuff.
On to the writing! I enjoyed the podcast transcript way the book was written in. Its akin to Taylor Jenkins Reids, Daisy Jones and the Six and it makes the book impossible to put down as it was such an easy read! I read this on like 4 hours!
One thing that bugged me slightly is that this is a written transcript of an audio podcast. All of the clips from the podcast are noted as Audio from whatever source. Now, if I’m listening to a video of an event playing, I’m only hearing the words and sounds. I cant hear actions like someone waving, or someone drinking something. So why choose to put transcriptions of those actions into the book. Listeners of your podcast wouldn’t have seen that and couldn’t have heard it either. So how can the written transcript include things like[MODELS CASUALLY WAVE IN THE BACKGROUND]or [TAKES SIP OF BEER] when that isn’t something anyone listening to the video audio would’ve heard? I can understand including sounds like laughing into the written transcript as that’s something listeners would’ve heard but there’s even a part where they added [GOES TO GRAB CARRIE’S ASS. SHE SHOVES HIM AWAY.]into an apparent audio transcript of what played on the podcast. No one listening to the audio via podcast would’ve been able to know that was happening…why include it in the transcript? Does that mean that during the actual podcast you paused the recording, and said that to your listeners for context and then continued the recording? A lot of those entries make for sense for video transcripts. Now I know a lot of the source material for the podcast was videos, but this wasn’t transcripts of those videos, these were transcripts of the completed podcast containing audio from the videos. I understand that maybe these “action” entries can give context in certain situations, like stating someone stared off into the distance, but if you’re claiming this is an audio transcript of something listeners hears, then you can’t just include these when it doesn’t make sense to the material you’re claiming this is from.
Other than this little nitty gritty fact I really enjoyed the writing style!
Overall, I enjoyed a large majority of the book as well as the social commentary about our societies obsession with getting likes and being loved by strangers. I would’ve liked this mystery a lot more if the connections and plot twists felt more believable but still a fun short read!

My goodreads review contains some spoilers where I talk specifics about what bothered me but the spoiler is tagged!

Rating : 2.75 out of 5
Blurbs :
Welcome to Influencer Island, an experience for ten competitors to travel to paradise and compete for social media glory. Overnight, millions of users send off their submission videos, hoping for the chance to party with the biggest influencers and celebrities in the world.

Or so they thought…

By the time the contest went offline, over a dozen influencers were declared dead or missing. No winner was announced. The only hope for a conclusion lay in an unaired podcast produced by Cal Everett, a young reporter with his own mysterious connection to the murderous contest creator, Wyatt James.

As listeners will soon discover, James designed Influencer Island to be more than a battle of social media wits. If the contestants hope to survive, they will have to answer the question at the very heart of the competition: How far would you be willing to go for fame?

Thoughts ; Great concept but not for me. It's always been hit or miss to me about psychological thriller and it happens again. I know people will like this book more than me. It's on me anyway. A little bit slower on the pacing but overall, still enjoyable read. Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the e-ARC!

Thank you, @netgalley for this ARC! Very rarely does a book keep my attention enough to be read in the duration of one sitting, but THIS one did. I knew within pages of Kyle Rutkin's newest work of art, "Influencer Island," that I was in for a wild ride! The description of this title holds up to the hype, as it truly is a Hunger Games-ish setting with a social media twist. I would also compare this title to Gretchen McNeil's "#MurderTrending."
"Influencer Island" is a brilliant idea, and shows just how far young adults will go in order to be famous online. This was terrifying in the BEST way.

4 stars.

Influencer Island had a premise that I was super excited to read - I love anything to do with the dark side of technology and social media, so this was perfect for me. I'm glad to say that this book did not disappoint!

The reader is thrown into the drama from the beginning and the fast pace throughout the book kept me absolutely hooked. Dark undertones are present right from the start, and every reveal - particularly involving Cal, the protagonist, and Carrie, one of the influencers - was unexpected, which I really enjoyed. There wasn't a dull moment, nor did the narrative start to drag at any point. The podcast format of the book was also very interesting to read, with interviews and audio transcripts littered throughout that made a somewhat unrealistic competition seem believable.

Whilst I loved the rapid pace of the book, it made it hard to keep up with all the names of the characters that are in the book. It was a little difficult to connect with some of the side characters, and I found myself questioning decisions made by certain characters due to how extreme or surprising they seemed.

Nevertheless, a thrilling read that had me hooked all the way through. I'd definitely love to see more by this author!

I thought the concept of this book was very compelling and really drew me to read it ASAP. I think this book markets itself well as tapping into the dystopian themes that so many readers (myself, included) are always looking to read, I love atypical narrative styles, so I thought the podcast transcript format was super unique. I really liked the character Carrie. And I found this to be a very quick read. However, I felt the plot was a bit muddled. I almost wish the book was longer and took more time introducing different plot points rather than jumbling them together. I also noticed several typos/ missing words. Overall, I appreciated the opportunity to read this book, and I would read more from this author.

“May fame and followers be upon you”

I literally read this book in less then 24 hours. Let’s just say as a social media influencer if anyone sends me a invite to a island competition, I’ll be denying it.
This book is written like a podcast script so it’s not like a traditional book. I was a bit confused in the beginning of the book since I’ve never read a book like this.
But I can say once I got the hang of the writing style I was hooked! I was drawn into the hunger game like plot. Only one influencer was leaving that island.
I do wish there was more competitions in it but overall I liked the book and might purchase a physical copy to actually read again.
I’ll always be reading his over works.

“We’re going to hunt each other for sport. Shoot and skin each other like animals. Maybe look pretty while we do it.”

“A wave doesn’t care about your intentions. It won’t give you a break or play games with you. So, if you hesitate even in the slightest, you’ve already lost.”

I enjoyed this book, the format fitted well with the storyline I felt, modern and relevant, I just wish I could say that the story line was beyond belief but with today’s influencer culture I’m not sure it is