Welcome to MarieClaire.com's Q&A author series. In this section, we ask #ReadWithMC's Author of the Month five hot questions about her latest novel, and our second installment for 2020 is Megan Angelo's "Followers" (opens in a new tab). If you're interested in this novel and are looking for friends to discuss the book with, find out how to join Marie Claire's online monthly book club here (opens in a new tab). (Five years ago, when Megan Angelo began outlining her debut novel, Followers, fake news didn't require a Merriam-Webster (opens in new tab) definition and people still used Instagram hashtags as a matter of course. tdlr: Things has changed. When she started writing about the unimaginable reality of the alternative of Donald Trump becoming president in the 2016 election, the idea she had for the book suddenly became less outlandish.

In Followers (opens in new tab), Angelo follows the lives of two roommates, Aura, a budding novelist, and Floss, an aspiring star, from 2015 to 2051. influencer Marlowe, who has 12 million followers, about her past Discovering a game-changing secret, privacy is no longer an option. Angelo will find his book bonkers and a bit scary once he realizes the parallels between this plot and our society today.

Here Angelo explains why he decided to focus on the foreseeable future of social media even though science fiction and dystopia are not his forte, and why Pen15's Maya Erskine plays the perfect Marlow in the film adaptation.

Megan Angelo: I started writing "Followers" when I was writing my journal and realized that my children would never read it because I was writing in pen and paper. I don't know why the pen and paper moment led to this book, but I think it was because I started thinking about writing something set in the future. I'm not much for science fiction or dystopia, so if I were to write one, I'd want to focus on something that my grandma would tell me about, "This is how it was in my time," and how it's obviously different from your time. It's funny that everyone seems to think I wanted to write this social media manifesto, but I think I'm nervous about social media and where it's going, and it's subconsciously seeped into my own mind. I wasn't thinking of writing something like, "Let's see what happens if Instagram doesn't work out.

MC: Why is your book timely?

MA: Well, it's a cautionary tale about what happens when you try to be famous, but it's also about what happens when you share too much. Because it seems like these days we are presenting ourselves in a way that makes people think we want to be famous, even if we don't want to be famous. Social media shares are timely, even though I didn't mean to preach to anyone.

MC: If you could be any character in this book, who would you be?

MA: Floss. What makes Floss different from the others is that he doesn't think about the consequences. Floss has never had drunken guilt. Even if you just had two glasses of wine, when you wake up the next day, you think, "Did I offend someone?" You think, "Did I offend someone? Floss has never done that. So, for all her faults and all her bad points, she is very free. It would be cool if she could act like that for a day and then go right back to being a wimp.

MC: Who are the main characters and antagonists in the movie?

MA: For Aura, I always imagined Emma Watson. She is smart, credible as a reader and writer, and always seems to have an inner life. For Marlowe, I like Maya Erskine. I am a big fan of PEN15 and I love that Maya is so expressive, funny and vulnerable. I feel like everyone is rooting for her. The floss is where I get stuck. It's hard for me to look at her. In the book, Floss seems to appear out of nowhere like an asteroid, but I want her to have the same qualities no matter who plays her.

MC: What are you reading now?

MA: I need a good book to keep me from looking at the Amazon rankings. I'm in the middle of reading Long Bright River by Liz Moore (opens in a new tab) and will be reading Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey (opens in a new tab) next. I'm also looking forward to Mary Kubica's next thriller, "The Other Mrs." (opens in new tab), which will be released in a few weeks, and Alka Joshi's "The (opens in new tab)Henna Artist" (opens in new tab). And, of course, "Such a Fun Age" (opens in new tab). I'll read it again. Then there's "The Wives" (opens in new tab) by Taryn Fisher. It's a thriller, and I don't usually read thrillers, but I literally finished it screaming.

You can listen to an excerpt of the book (opens in new tab) available on Audible (opens in new tab) below.

Audio excerpted courtesy HarperAudio from Followers by Megan Angelo, read by Jayme Mattler.

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