Leigh Stein

Fates collide after a tarot influencer disappears from a decaying Hollywood mansion in this unnerving gothic mystery and “incisive social satire” (Town & Country) from the acclaimed author of Self Care. “Leigh Stein’s work provokes you like the most unsettling clip you’ve ever seen on a screen—and you won’t be able to look away.”—Julia Phillips, bestselling author of Bear After her boyfriend dumps her in a Reddit post, unemployed thirty-nine-year-old Dayna accepts an unusual opportunity from a man she stopped speaking to twenty years ago: If Dayna can help Craig transform his crumbling mansion into a successful hype house of influencers, he can restore his birthright to its former glory, and she can bring her career back from the dead. But missing from the mansion is Becca, an enigmatic tarot card reader who built a rabid fandom with her cryptic, soul-touching videos . . . and then vanished. With nineteen-year-old Olivia, the newest member of the hype house (and one of Becca’s biggest fans), Dayna begins to build a social media campaign around Becca’s disappearance that will catapult the creators to new heights of success. Too bad Craig forbids Dayna from pursuing the mystery at its heart. As Olivia searches for traces of Becca in a labyrinthine house that seems intent on hiding its secrets, and Dayna becomes entangled with both Craig and Jake, the resident heartthrob and the last person to see Becca, the two women make a shocking discovery that will upend everything. The internet: You may think you’re inhabiting it, but is it really inhabiting you?

A Novel

If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You

Amelia

Because I first crawled inside the internet when my parents were getting divorced, I still associated chatting online with splitting my outer self from my inner one, like peeling the rind from the fruit. It was the secret social life I carried on while everyone else was sleep ing. ing. Chatting wasn't like texting, which was efficient yet Superficial. Chatting was long and sinuous, a labyrinth.

On Instagram, I scrolled through the catalog of all the women I had ever known. The younger onesmy former interns, the assistant producers, the social media managers still posted lifestyle content: monochromatic outfits and beverages, female friendships, tablescapes, engagement rings, little treats. They documented the lives they led when they weren't on the clock by imitating the most popular influencers who made a living selling them the lifestyle they were all unconsciously copying. Now that I had more experience on the platform, I could see how homogenous it all looked. How staged for the camera. We thought we were making choices based on our desires, preferences, and values, but really the platforms were driving our behaviors by rewarding us with likes for delivering content that performed.

Maybe it was true what the adults said that the platform wasn't the real world. But it was real enough. You could leave this world for that one without dying. The old people who were so mad that we were spending all our time on the platform weren't giving us a better alternative. Who would choose the real world with all its suffering and humiliations— over a platform that excluded everyone who believed you were wasting your life? This was my life. Everyone on the platform had already bought into the platform. We were in on the joke. The joke was on them. 

If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You quotes

Join the club