Influencer culture pilloried in prose

Winnipeg Free Press

2 days ago

Part mystery, part satire and even part horror, second-generation Chinese-Canadian writer Liann Zhang's debut novel is a bizarre but entertaining look at the world of social media influencer culture.
Julie Chan is a supermarket cashier with no friends who steals food from work to keep herself fed. One day, she receives a disturbing phone call from her estranged twin sister, Chloe, a rich influencer with followers in the millions. Sensing something is wrong, Julie travels to Chloe's New York City penthouse and finds her sister dead on the floor.
As she's about to report the death to the police, Julie quickly makes the rash decision to switch places, ditching her sad, anonymous life for her twin's more comfortable and glamorous one.
Julie Chan is Dead
With unwitting help from Chloe's manager, Julie seamlessly continues her sister's social media life, interacting with fans, receiving lavish gifts and going to trendy parties. At first, no one in Chloe's world suspects the truth, and everyone writes off any strange behaviour as her just being '#sad' and '#grieving.'
But it doesn't take long for her aunt and cousin to figure out what's going on, and Julie soon finds herself being blackmailed. In order to pay off her scheming family members, she becomes a lot more obvious with paid endorsements on her channels, while watching her numbers drop on each platform.
Thankfully, Julie has her new influencer friends to cheer her up. A group of mostly indistinguishable twentysomething white women, the Belladonnas are led by Bella Marie, whose level of fame and wealth seems almost unattainable for a social media personality.
But, of course, Julie soon learns her new friends may be hiding some sinister secrets.
Toronto- and Vancouver-based Zhang was only 16 when she had her own brush with internet fame, gaining over 20,000 followers on a skincare-themed Instagram account. The author, who now has a degree in psychology and criminology, says this book was inspired by the fellow influencers she met through group chats.
Clearly she has some strong, negative feelings from this experience, as most characters are quite unlikable — even Julie, who quickly embraces her new personality.
Zhang takes some fun shots at influencer culture, and that cynical humour drives the first half of the novel. But it does get dragged down by some very predictable turns.
Then a huge twist comes that makes the second half seem like a different book altogether. It quickly delves into cult-horror territory — think Rosemary's Baby or The Wicker Man but with trite self-help affirmations and beauty tips.
The shift may be a bit jarring for some readers, but Zhang's cutting humour is amped up, along with the overall pace, which all leads to a ridiculous, over-the-top finale.
While it has some flaws, Julie Chan is Dead is a fun, memorable debut.
Hardly an influencer, Alan MacKenzie is struggling to find 600 subscribers for his YouTube channel.