This book is what I would consider a mushy-middle read. It’s fine if you try not to expect too much from it.

This book does a great job at poking fun at influencers in todays world. Sometimes satirical in nature, this book blended a story that is claimed to be part Fyre Festival (I guess?) and part The Hunger Games (again, I guess?) Into a mystery driven story.

The mystery elements did keep my attention, but I struggled with connecting to the characters and how the book was formatted. While the podcast-style script was neat and refreshing, I found there to be way too many interjections that even if I were to listen to a regular podcast with this many audio clips, interjections from narrators, and trying to tell two stories simultaneously, I probably would have had a headache and turned this off.

Give this a chance if you’re looking for an easy and gory-read that will strike you in the moment but won’t hold much after-thought.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publishers for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Influencer Island
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Thriller
Format: Kindle eBook
Date Published: 7/30/22
Author: Kyle Rutkin
Publisher: Greater Path LLC
Pages: 190
GR: 3.51

I requested a digital advanced readers copy from NetGalley and Greater Path LLC and providing my opinion voluntarily and unbiased.

Synopsis: Welcome to Influencer Island, an experience for ten competitors to travel to paradise and compete for social media glory. 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. 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?

My Thoughts: The format of this book is unconventional, once you get used to it, it goes really fast. I think if the book would have focused on action events or the original scenes, it would have been better. The character development was hit or miss, meaning some characters were developed real well, while others got a line with no development. The POV was hard to keep track of, who was speaking where. The plot was a bit all over the place, it tried to incorporate too many subplots. The book was very chaotic. I was left with wanting more, more structure, more character development, and more definitive plot direction. I do not like giving books 2 stars but I just couldn’t find where to give more stars. I did not mind the podcast commentary, I thought that was unique. The ending was disappointing.

I did really like the concept here. The Fyre fest inspo was very fun. I just didnt get into the plot and intruige as much as I would have hoped. The characters didnt pull me in and I found the podcast format harder to read.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Fyre festival meets Hunger games? Yeah I can definitely see it. Loads of influencers apply to go out to an island and win the game in the hopes of gaining fame and fortune. What they don't know is that the price they will be being to try to win this is their life...quite literally. This is dark with so many twists and what was supposed to be a fun competition turned into a deadly game of cat and mouse, aired to millions of people around the world. In an even bigger twist all of the contestants are somehow connected.

I really liked the format of this. Its written as the scripts of podcasts episodes and includes stuff like interviews and audio clips. I liked the multimedia aspect of this. I also really liked the concept, it was cleverly done and although I had an inkling of some of the directions this books was going in I would have never guessed the end result. The thing that let this book down was the characters. On the surface some of them seemed quite interesting and complex but unfortunately they weren't really explored or fleshed out enough to give them any real depth.

If you're looking for a quick, fast paced read with twists and turns from the get go then you will probably enjoy this.

*author watches squid game"
*author sad because his last post didn't get many likes*
*author reads a book about cults*
*author decides to write a book*
This was really such a weird book, i didn't hate the format of podcast script or even the sudden change between time periods & POVs, instead i really was dumbfounded by how much some things didn't make any sense.
Everytime the author didn't know how to finish a scene, he would just write some bizarre scene fully depending on shock value.
The way the book finale turned so didactic about social media and personal brand was cringe worthy.
The fact that there's an Israeli character describing her upbringing as one where nothing was easy because of her heritage was just infuriating, like it must be hard invading another country and killing children and civilians.
Didn't like it.
* I received an ARC of this book through netgalley and the publisher in exchange of an honest review*

Unique take on storytelling, as the author uses a podcast format to deliver the story. While the details were slightly gory & disturbing, I lost track of where the actual plot was going & what was happening in the story. It fell flat for me, unfortunately, as I am always looking for a dark thriller.

Thanks NetGalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review

3.5 rounded up to 4/5.

“How far would you be willing to go for fame and followers?”

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.

I was immediately enticed by the blurb of this book and couldn’t wait to get started. I enjoyed the unique way in which Rutkin structured his story through podcast write ups, social media posts, news reviews etc which gave the story an original twist.

I thought the book was dark and twisted and the concept was intriguing, but for me it fell a little short. I don’t know if it was because I felt like I couldn’t relate to any of the characters and maybe I was expecting more ‘drama’ or ‘mayhem’, but I just wasn’t all that invested in the outcome for any of the ‘contestants’ and thought the whole plot was flat. I was left feeling like I wanted more, and that the ending didn’t really have the impact I expected. Shame really because I thought the ideas in the book were ace.

I really enjoyed this book, however I felt more could of been added to make it more interesting. The plot was such an amazing idea, but I don't think it was drawn out enough. I think they were many parts that could of used more details than was given, but I did enjoy the book I just wish it was longer.

This book sounded like it would be a really fun thriller with a cool concept - Fyre Festival meets The Hunger Games. Unfortunately it just wasn’t the book for me.

I didn’t connect with any of the characters - I don’t think they were meant to be extremely likeable anyway as they were like famous level influencers who care about their number of followers into the millions. But I just didn’t care about any of them and didn’t find myself rooting for anyone once all the action started. There were also a few characters that were just so obviously based around real life influencers (think the Jenners and the Hadids), that they were even given similar names. I found this to be really unoriginal and lazy 🥲

I found the story to be quite disjointed in places and there were some elements to the plot that were so far past realistic that they were just absurd. I don’t mind a bit of unrealistic action in books, particularly thrillers and horrors, because you’ve got to get some good action in there right? But this was just mad 😅

I liked the way the book was told through podcast episodes, so we had almost like a script format where different people were speaking during the podcast. This made the book a really easy and quick read. It’s also less than 200 pages so it’s super quick anyway.

It was a fun read in parts, but I just don’t think it was for me and didn’t live up to expectation I had from it given it’s comparison to The Hunger Games. However it was a super quick read so give it a go, you may enjoy it more than I did! It’s also on Kindle Unlimited!

I thought this was well written. It’s a great story! and I want to thank NetGalley for the chance to read the arc :)

This book was different in a good way! I’m giving this a 3.75!

Let’s begin!

We meet Cal and Joss who are doing a podcast on a mysterious person who creates art and is very influenced by social media. He creates a reality show on social media about 10 top influencers and leave them on an island to make it out alive. By the end the last one literally standing will have more fame they will know what to do with.

Carrie and her best kiara are thinking about going on this island. Butbeknowndt to them is why they are picked and what lies in wait for them on the island.

What secrets will come out and who will be the last one standing??

The format for this book was difficult to get used to but I still found it interesting and read it in one sitting. Thanks to NetGalley and Greater Path LLC for the ARC.

I don’t quite know what to say about this one. I read it in a couple of hours so it obviously kept my attention but…so many of the characters were so flat and one dimensional that it was hard to keep track of who they were. And the storyline was super bizarre. It was very much a lord of the flies or hunger games speed but with social media influencers. Toss in snake venom that makes you hallucinate, an enigmatic masked puppet master and a tragic main character who isn’t very likable at all. Love the idea - which it had been clearer or more fleshed out.

Thrilling read! I was able to connect with all of the characters and throughly enjoyed the story the author painted.

I really wanted to love this book, with its original concept, the message it was trying to portray and the unconventional nature of the way it was written, but it just fell a bit flat for me.

I felt that there could have been much more character development. Even the ones that developed the most (Carrie, Cal and Kiana), still didn't develop enough, given what they went through, in my opinion.

I also felt that some aspects in the story didn't quite match up in the end. I came away with quite a few questions - How was everyone involved? What are the further links from Wonderland? What role was Kaylyn playing?

I felt there were some scenes that had me hooked and could have had a bit more. Both the first and second challenges could have been developed more and had the suspense built further, they were great dread filled scenes, but could have gone further.

It is a dark, fast paced, action packed book with a great concept, I just wanted a bit more from it. The twist was fun and the involvement of the art and underground Hollywood is intriguing. I also like that it's part of a wider collection of books that can be read together or separately.

Meh.

The book is fine I guess. It’s influencers being tricked into going to an island inspired by Fyre Festival and when they get there, it’s a Battle Royale/Hunger Games style fight to the death.

I think there are a lot of attempts this book does to be a lot deeper than it is. Maybe it’s because I’ve studied fine arts and been surrounded by a community of artists for so many years but I just couldn’t get over this book’s villain (and potentially even the author?) genuinely believing that his impact is anything more than shock value art. It’s wildly boring and is only significant because it’s about celebrity but the villain thinks he’s above shallow celebrities even though he’s a shallow faux-deep celebrity with a raging god-complex. But he “opens people’s eyes”.

But also the people who have become so enlightened still live off of celebrity status.

There are multiple storylines and connected mysteries running in and out of each other throughout the entire book and that was something I could really do without. Having to switch between storyline so quickly with no breaks or transitions was a bit frustrating at times and what doesn’t help is that Cal is simply not a character I want to follow along with. It’s not that I dislike him but he also isn’t interesting or enjoyable to watch. I just don’t care for him or his crush on Carrie.

In the end, I’m sort of confused on what the message is supposed to be. People go to inhumane lengths to gain fame and fortune but those who go against the fight for fame will be rewarded with fame and fortune?

Very jumbled and difficult to pay attention to, especially when all of the influencers who aren’t Carrie felt like copy pasted duplicates of each other. I wish such a cool concept was executed better

This book was an interesting read. The story highlights the dark side of social media. It’s a quick read, if you like dark psychological thrillers with lots of secrets this is a great read.

This was interesting! I enjoyed the formatting and liked that it was fast-paced. I think it could have cooked a little longer, but will seek out Kyle's other books.

While the premise is a really cool new idea I didn’t enjoy the writing style. I felt this would be a great movie or tv series but I couldn’t stay interested in the book. Also some typos and errors where the characters names changed (I. E. Kendall Jenner mentioned)

Influencer Island explores our dark obsession with social media and the role it plays in our lives.
The focus is on renowned artist, Wyatt James, (think Banksy) and their involvement event in a competition known as Influencer Island. Eleven of the most popular influencers are encouraging people to sign up to compete…the key rules, do what you need to in order to survive.
Some well-known YA fiction is alluded to here, and the characters were very obviously based on people we might recognise. However, the podcast format was an interesting idea.
From the outset this was clearly going to have a purpose we would need to uncover. The character of Cal was our lifeline here, though he had his own reasons for getting involved.
Thanks to the author and NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this before publication.