This review first appeared in Booklist on March 1, 2025.
After the traumatic death of her best friend, Teresa finds herself living in an increasingly small and suffocating world—reduced to the size of her bedroom, though she fears it might shrink even further. Her only reprieve from these dark thoughts—and her sole connection to the outside world—comes from the streaming community she’s recently joined. This safe space is suddenly shattered when a shadowy force begins to haunt people’s live streams, inexplicably leaving its victims in an eerie, unresponsive state. When a famous streamer dies shortly after one of these incidents, and the entity starts targeting Teresa and her small group of online friends, she becomes determined to stop it—even if it means facing her fears and leaving the confines of her self-imposed isolation. Romasco-Moore perfectly captures the irreverent and intentionally inscrutable spirit of today’s internet, telling a thoroughly terrifying and viscerally modern ghost story that explores themes of grief, identity, belonging, and the double-edged nature of social media. A companion to other online-savvy thrillers like Tatiana Schlote-Bonne’s Such Lovely Skin (2024) and Adam Cesare’s Influencer (2024).
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