Last Seen Online by Lauren James
Oct. 20th, 2024 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Ten years ago an obsessed fangirl known as Gottie set out to prove that two male actors were dating. But her online investigations uncovered far more than she bargained for.
In the ensuring frenzy, one of the Hollywood actors was killed. The other was charged with his murder.
And Gottie disappeared without a trace.
Now it’s time to crack the case wide open …
17-year-old Delilah Thorne lives in Los Angeles with her two mums (who are currently going through a separation) and dog Thistle. Delilah has two passions - acting and true crime podcasts - which collide when a disastrous audition for a high school brings her into contact with Sawyer Saffitz, the son of Hollywood actress Anya Saffitz and Brad Saffitz (a top showbiz lawyer).
Sawyer’s godfather, Rob Hennings, worked with Anya (in what was her breakout role) and Nathan O’Donnell in a paranormal detective show called ‘Loch & Ness’. Rob and Nathan played sometime lovers and the show’s fans speculated about whether they were a couple in real life. One particular fan - Gottie - was so obsessed with the pair that she made it her life’s mission to prove that they were in love. Instead, Gottie found herself an accidental witness to events that culminated in Nathan’s murder and Rob being convicted of the same, despite his protestations of innocence.
Sawyer is convinced of his godfather’s innocence and Delilah is keen to help him investigate the same. Entering the world of Hollywood’s elite, however, means attracting the attention of paparazzi and Anya Saffitz’s on-line fans and Delilah finds that she and Sawyer are attracting attention that she isn’t prepared for. More sinister though, is the fact that someone seems to be tracking their investigation and is prepared to do whatever it takes to make them back off, even if that means killing them both …
Lauren James’s standalone YA thriller is very strong on fame, fandoms and toxic fan behaviour but the murder aspect was under-powered for me with the villain too easy to guess and a final twist that didn’t ring true. At the same time, Delilah’s backstory was too busy and a sub-plot involving her best friend Nida feeling superfluous. That said, it is a fast-paced read and James has something to say so I would check out her next book.
I picked this up having previously read THE LONELIEST GIRL IN THE UNIVERSE, which also took a look at fan fiction but where it’s put front and centre in this book. James knows a lot about fandoms and talks about her own fandom involvement in an Author’s Note at the end. The best sections in the book for me were the extracts from Gottie’s blog (which is an actual blog that James herself set up in 2018) and the comments made underneath them because they remind me so much of my own experiences in fandom. The Gottie sections all help build the backstory for the main mystery and manage to add in information while also making you wonder how reliable Gottie is as a narrator (something that the comments also draw out). I think this is why I was so disappointed in a twist that comes at the end of the book, mainly because it didn’t have any real build up in the preceding text and the lack of confrontation over it just didn’t ring true.
James has put a lot of thought into Delilah’s backstory and character and for me it had a mixed effect. On the plus side I believed in her reaction to finding herself the target of on-line trolls thanks to her developing relationship with Sawyer and I also believed in her awe and reverence of Sawyer’s parents, coupled with a hope that if she uses the contact right then it could help her own hopes of becoming an actor. The slow-build romance between her and Sawyer works fairly well, although I think the way the book ends between them is rushed and therefore quite weak.
Where Delilah fell flat for me is the fact that the sub-plots involving her mums’ separation and her anxiety over her friendship with Nida just weren’t developed enough and as such didn’t add much for me. That’s a shame because I was interested in the fact that one of her mums is trans and works in the film and TV industry because I kept thinking it would add an extra dimension to the thriller, but it just doesn’t bring anything. Similarly, the Nida storyline seems to be intended to be linked to Delilah’s feelings of anxiety and desire to overcompensate but again, there isn’t enough there for it to be interesting to me (not least because Delilah keeps referring to how this adversely impacted a previous friendship, which we have never seen on the page). Ultimately it just all felt a bit unnecessary and could have been cut without it adversely impacting on the overall story.
Delilah has a good first-person voice and the pacing of the story works well. Certainly this is one of the few books I’ve read that uses extracts and internet sources without it feeling like a gimmick. However I guessed who the villain was far too early on, which meant that the climatic scenes lacked tension for me.
I don’t think that this is a bad book - if you’ve ever been involved in a fandom then it’s a read that will resonate with you - and I like the fact that James is an author who seeks to bring complexity and layers into her fiction, even if it doesn’t work for me. Certainly I would check out James’s next book as she is a very versatile writer and I’ keen to see what she does next.
The Verdict:
Lauren James’s standalone YA thriller is very strong on fame, fandoms and toxic fan behaviour but the murder aspect was under-powered for me with the villain too easy to guess and a final twist that didn’t ring true. At the same time, Delilah’s backstory was too busy and a sub-plot involving her best friend Nida feeling superfluous. That said, it is a fast-paced read and James has something to say so I would check out her next book.
LAST SEEN ONLINE was released in the United Kingdom on 1st August 2024. Thanks to Walker Books for the review copy of this book.
Ten years ago an obsessed fangirl known as Gottie set out to prove that two male actors were dating. But her online investigations uncovered far more than she bargained for.
In the ensuring frenzy, one of the Hollywood actors was killed. The other was charged with his murder.
And Gottie disappeared without a trace.
Now it’s time to crack the case wide open …
17-year-old Delilah Thorne lives in Los Angeles with her two mums (who are currently going through a separation) and dog Thistle. Delilah has two passions - acting and true crime podcasts - which collide when a disastrous audition for a high school brings her into contact with Sawyer Saffitz, the son of Hollywood actress Anya Saffitz and Brad Saffitz (a top showbiz lawyer).
Sawyer’s godfather, Rob Hennings, worked with Anya (in what was her breakout role) and Nathan O’Donnell in a paranormal detective show called ‘Loch & Ness’. Rob and Nathan played sometime lovers and the show’s fans speculated about whether they were a couple in real life. One particular fan - Gottie - was so obsessed with the pair that she made it her life’s mission to prove that they were in love. Instead, Gottie found herself an accidental witness to events that culminated in Nathan’s murder and Rob being convicted of the same, despite his protestations of innocence.
Sawyer is convinced of his godfather’s innocence and Delilah is keen to help him investigate the same. Entering the world of Hollywood’s elite, however, means attracting the attention of paparazzi and Anya Saffitz’s on-line fans and Delilah finds that she and Sawyer are attracting attention that she isn’t prepared for. More sinister though, is the fact that someone seems to be tracking their investigation and is prepared to do whatever it takes to make them back off, even if that means killing them both …
Lauren James’s standalone YA thriller is very strong on fame, fandoms and toxic fan behaviour but the murder aspect was under-powered for me with the villain too easy to guess and a final twist that didn’t ring true. At the same time, Delilah’s backstory was too busy and a sub-plot involving her best friend Nida feeling superfluous. That said, it is a fast-paced read and James has something to say so I would check out her next book.
I picked this up having previously read THE LONELIEST GIRL IN THE UNIVERSE, which also took a look at fan fiction but where it’s put front and centre in this book. James knows a lot about fandoms and talks about her own fandom involvement in an Author’s Note at the end. The best sections in the book for me were the extracts from Gottie’s blog (which is an actual blog that James herself set up in 2018) and the comments made underneath them because they remind me so much of my own experiences in fandom. The Gottie sections all help build the backstory for the main mystery and manage to add in information while also making you wonder how reliable Gottie is as a narrator (something that the comments also draw out). I think this is why I was so disappointed in a twist that comes at the end of the book, mainly because it didn’t have any real build up in the preceding text and the lack of confrontation over it just didn’t ring true.
James has put a lot of thought into Delilah’s backstory and character and for me it had a mixed effect. On the plus side I believed in her reaction to finding herself the target of on-line trolls thanks to her developing relationship with Sawyer and I also believed in her awe and reverence of Sawyer’s parents, coupled with a hope that if she uses the contact right then it could help her own hopes of becoming an actor. The slow-build romance between her and Sawyer works fairly well, although I think the way the book ends between them is rushed and therefore quite weak.
Where Delilah fell flat for me is the fact that the sub-plots involving her mums’ separation and her anxiety over her friendship with Nida just weren’t developed enough and as such didn’t add much for me. That’s a shame because I was interested in the fact that one of her mums is trans and works in the film and TV industry because I kept thinking it would add an extra dimension to the thriller, but it just doesn’t bring anything. Similarly, the Nida storyline seems to be intended to be linked to Delilah’s feelings of anxiety and desire to overcompensate but again, there isn’t enough there for it to be interesting to me (not least because Delilah keeps referring to how this adversely impacted a previous friendship, which we have never seen on the page). Ultimately it just all felt a bit unnecessary and could have been cut without it adversely impacting on the overall story.
Delilah has a good first-person voice and the pacing of the story works well. Certainly this is one of the few books I’ve read that uses extracts and internet sources without it feeling like a gimmick. However I guessed who the villain was far too early on, which meant that the climatic scenes lacked tension for me.
I don’t think that this is a bad book - if you’ve ever been involved in a fandom then it’s a read that will resonate with you - and I like the fact that James is an author who seeks to bring complexity and layers into her fiction, even if it doesn’t work for me. Certainly I would check out James’s next book as she is a very versatile writer and I’ keen to see what she does next.
The Verdict:
Lauren James’s standalone YA thriller is very strong on fame, fandoms and toxic fan behaviour but the murder aspect was under-powered for me with the villain too easy to guess and a final twist that didn’t ring true. At the same time, Delilah’s backstory was too busy and a sub-plot involving her best friend Nida feeling superfluous. That said, it is a fast-paced read and James has something to say so I would check out her next book.
LAST SEEN ONLINE was released in the United Kingdom on 1st August 2024. Thanks to Walker Books for the review copy of this book.
