Thank you, TBR and Beyond Tours, for the chance to be on the book tour for Lord of the Fly Fest by Goldy Moldvasky!
Y U DO THIS NetGalley?
Firstly, I need to acknowledge that while I got the book from NetGalley via a widget sent by TBR and Beyond Tours, I couldn’t find the book on my kindle despite downloading it in time! This is the second time I’ve noticed something off with NetGalley.
It sent me The Killing Code by Ellie Marney as The Killing Code by James Patterson, which is so odd.
Either way, I bought the ebook, and I have no regrets!
Side note
TBR and Beyond tours, Random Things Tours, and The Write Reads have all been good for my NetGalley feedback ratio. I miss NetGalley deadlines, but a tour gives me more structure. When TBR and Beyond Tours give me a widget, I know I’ll have a review up and running by that date. Random Things Tours gives me deadlines for books I have approvals for, so it’s a good way of getting through books.
Housekeeping:
Lord of the Fly Fest came out on the 30th of August. It’s 317 pages long and is published by Henry Holt and Co.. This is not a debut novel; the author Goldy Moldavsky has published several other books, one of which is The Mary Shelly Club, which I think everyone can remember from bookstagram last year.
Incidentally, her other book, Kill the Boy Band, is on sale for $1.99, which I got because of the title.
Review:
Lord of the Fly Fest is written for Netflix, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was picked up. I loved that the author thought Fyre Fest, but what if everyone decided to pretend. I guess influencers are good at pretending that everything is fine and that they’re living their best lives while the world falls apart.
And there we have Rafi. She’s the person doing her best to be an intellectual because it’s a podcast, but you also get the sense that Rafi also really wishes did have more influence. She is trying hard to get sponsorships for her podcast while choosing a medium where she can put her thoughts out without putting her face out there. Rafi also plays the sane person on the island; she’s the one who wants to get help ASAP and tries to calm people down. However, when she doesn’t have enough followers to be considered significant, she’s shunted to the side and given plenty of time to think about how River killed his first girlfriend.
As Peggy puts it, Ravi is a little obsessed and knows more about River than his actual fans, and for most of the book, you get the sense that she may just be into him. As the book progresses, you can see Rafi breaking down and doing her best to survive. Towards the end, she also cracks and engages in the same behavior that she looked down on!
I loved all the characters! As I said, this is a Netflix show in the making! Everything is slightly ridiculously over the top and a caricature of what we think influencers are like in person. River’s real story was so ridiculous! I loved the two guys who wanted to sue Banana Republic! I also really loved Greer, Sierra, and Jack and how Sierra was the sanest one of the lot of them. Goldy Moldvasky’s inclusion of Hella Badid was also one of the things that made me love the book!
At one point I literally put the book down and cast people as characters. Of course, Hella Badid will be played by Bella Hadid in my production!
Basically, if you like pop culture, you’ll like this book!
About the Author:
Goldy Moldavsky was born in Lima, Peru, and grew up in Brooklyn, where she still lives. Her novels include the New York Times bestseller, KILL THE BOY BAND, NO GOOD DEED (Scholastic), and THE MARY SHELLEY CLUB (Henry Holt). Her books have appeared on numerous Best-Books lists and have been translated to other languages. Her love of 80s movies, 90s boy bands, and horror flicks hugely influences her work. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram @goldywrites.
She is represented byJenny Bent at the Bent Agency.
Blurb:
One of Us Is Lying meets Lord of the Flies meets Fyre Fest in this wickedly addictive and funny YA thriller.
Rafi Francisco needs something really special to put her true crime podcast on the map. She sets her sights on River Stone, the hearthrob musician who rose to stardom after the mysterious disappearance of his girlfriend. Rafi lands herself a ticket to the exclusive Fly Fest, where River will be the headliner.
But when Rafi arrives on the Caribbean island location of Fly Fest with hundreds of other influencers and (very minor) celebrities, they quickly discover that the dream trip is more of a nightmare. And it’s not just confronting beauty gurus-gone-wild and spotty WiFi. Soon, Rafi goes from fighting for an interview to fighting for her life. And, as she gets closer to River, she discovers that he might be hiding even darker secrets than she suspected…
Content Warning: violence, missing persons, and bodily functions
The Girl Who Reads 
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