By Robyn Rossit
Content warning: sexual assault, eating disorder, rape, alcoholism, drug abuse
Nineteen-year-old Mickey dreams of being a famous Instagram model. Her traditional modelling career has not gained much traction, and while she is beautiful and motivated, she has nothing in the bank to show for it. She also has a growing, unhealthy fascination with famous Instagram model Gemma Anton. Gemma has everything that Mickey wishes she had—a rapidly accelerating career, hundreds of thousands of followers, and of course, a famous photographer boyfriend. When Mickey is suddenly thrust into the spotlight after a lucky encounter, she is met with overnight success. As her career takes off, she begins to struggle with separating her true self from the social media persona that she has created.
Like Me is certainly a fascinating dive into the age of social media and influencer culture, and the sad reality that can stem from seeking validation from strangers online and chasing “likes,” and the false sense of friendship that can be felt following your favourite influencer who seemingly shares so much of themselves online. Mickey is so fixated on chasing fame and being just like Gemma that her reality becomes very much skewed. This is the digital-age version of expectations versus reality, and the impact that social media can have on distorting your reality.
While Mickey was not necessarily a likeable character, she was not really meant to be. Not only does she distort her reality with social media, but this distortion also goes hand-in-hand with alcohol and drug abuse. She is a self-destructive, unreliable narrator, which made me really sympathize with her. Her identity issues, as well as body image pressure, is all fuelled by her fixation with not only being just like Gemma, but with the world inside her phone in general. Her family is dysfunctional, and she doesn't have any real friends, so she doesn't have anyone to keep her anchored in reality.
While Hayley Phelan’s writing style took a bit for me to get used to, once I got into Like Me I read it in a few sittings. It really made me reflect about my own life online and had me re-evaluating what really is important. While the content warnings for this book makes it an adult read, I think the important messages it sheds light on (about the dangers of the social media age) make it an important book to read.
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.