Follow Your Arrow

CeCe Ross and her girlfriend, Sylvie, are #relationshipgoals.  The have thousands of followers online and their social media accounts are so linked they might as well be joint accounts.  They are even headlining the Pride parade in a few months.  That's why CeCe is devastated when Sylvie breaks up with her out of the blue one day right after a live video where everything seemed fine.

CeCe is completely blindsided, but it seems like Sylvie has been ready to move on for a while.  She's kept CeCe in the dark about major projects, and it seems like only minutes before she's letting their fans know the relationship is over.  

CeCe's life is now publicly upended.  But now that she has all this extra time to think, she can't ignore the increasing anxiety she's felt about being her true self online and public.  When she first started her account she was a champion of deserving causes and shared her opinion on controversial and political topics.  Now she second guesses herself before she posts anything.

While she's still struggling to get over Sylvie, she meets Josh.  He's a brilliant street musician who barely goes online and doesn't have a single social media account.  She's known she was bi since it even occurred to her to think about it, but Sylvie is the only relationship she's ever had. She feels an almost immediate connection with Josh, and it's not long before the two of them are beginning a relationship.

Her online life is still a mess thanks to her public breakup, and Josh is not into social media, so she decides to just keep quiet about that part of her life.  When her online life catches up to her new real life relationship, everything implodes, and CeCe may lose everything that's important to her.

Jessica Verdi's novel has several interesting layers.  It's a breakup story, and while Verdi tries to keep Sylvie from being the villain, some of her behaviors do seem questionable.  It's also a love story with an attraction and eclectic love interest.  But it's also a meditation on the power of social media for good and ill.  Recommended for the social media obsessed and as LGBTQ representation.