If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You - by Leigh Stein (Paperback)

About the Book

"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"--

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "For anyone who has felt fate intervening on their TikTok feed" (USA Today) comes a "gothic horror story wrapped up in a mystery [with] much to say about Hollywood, social media, and the creator economy" (Los Angeles Times)

"Here you'll find that gothic horror, so often lurking in the dingy dark, can manifest also in the fluorescent world of the terminally online."--NPR

The internet: You may think you're inhabiting it, but is it really inhabiting you?

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.

Review Quotes

"Stein's novel has much to say about Hollywood, social media, and the creator economy; at its heart is a gothic horror story wrapped up in a mystery with satirical undertones."--Los Angeles Times

"For anyone who has felt fate intervening on their TikTok feed."--USA Today

"[An] incisive social satire . . . a funny, dark look at the new creator economy in a way only Leigh Stein can."--Town & Country, "The Must-Read Books of the Summer"

"Here you'll find that gothic horror, so often lurking in the dingy dark, can manifest also in the fluorescent world of the terminally online. . . . Stein knows more about the internet than I do. (Probably more than you too, dear reader, but I don't want to presume.) Makes sense, then, that the versatile writer has found the gothic possibilities in a house full of social media influencers."--NPR

"Leigh Stein's wildly entertaining and whip-smart new novel is about a bunch of aspiring influencers in a hype house--except that house is an old mansion that may have some ghosts of its own. This fun twist on a Gothic mystery offers insightful commentary into influencer culture and the way we consume internet content."--Katie Couric Media

"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, author of Bear

"This is a smart, funny, and incisive novel about fading relevance, digital reinvention, and the people addicted to making content even as it consumes them."--Andrew Boryga, author of Victim

"A masterpiece and laugh-out-loud funny . . . the first novel about TikTok that takes it seriously, in all its hideousness and brain rot . . . I'm obsessed with the fusion of Gothic creeping dread and the seductive allure of the algorithm. I loved this!"--Josh Lora (attellthebeees)

"In this hauntingly subversive novel, Leigh Stein summons Rebecca, Alice Liddell, and Francesca Woodman to brilliantly explore the cost of online fame for a generation raised on screens. I happily fell down the rabbit hole."--Betsy Lerner, author of Shred Sisters

"Soooo good . . . TikTok hype house gothic-literary drama."--The Cut's Book Gossip newsletter

"Leigh Stein [has] cemented herself as a satirist of Our Present Moment. Turns out nothing is scarier than the influence machine."--Literary Hub

"There's no better setting to explore the changing world of media than a Los Angeles influencer's mansion. . . . Rife with poignant observations about what drives a person to a content-creation career (trauma, grit, destiny) and how the lines between media and retail have all but disappeared, Stein's latest . . . is a super-fun read with amazing depth."--Booklist

"Intriguing . . . There's plenty to enjoy in this smart social comedy."--Publishers Weekly

"Gothic horror meets the glitz of 21st-century Los Angeles in this surreal and bingeable story."--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Leigh Stein is the author of six books, including the critically acclaimed satirical novel Self Care, and the creator of the Attention Economy newsletter on Substack. She has also written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Allure, ELLE, Airmail, and The Cut.