-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A Novel
by Leigh Stein
Fates collide after a tarot influencer disappears from a decaying Hollywood mansion in this unnerving gothic mystery and audacious social comedy from the acclaimed author of Self Care.
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.
"The many plot strands make the novel a bit unwieldy, with touchstones ranging from Rebecca to The Real World, but Stein's winding narrative effectively builds drama thanks to its solid characterizations and increasingly creepy vibe. There's plenty to enjoy in this smart social comedy." —Publishers Weekly
"Author Stein adeptly captures the messiness and contradictions of being human and creating content, portraying the blurred lines between reality and online personas and the unhinged emotional toil that creating such content can take. Gothic horror meets the glitz of 21st-century Los Angeles in this surreal and bingeable story." —Kirkus Reviews
"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
"Leigh Stein is an absolute master at noticing and excavating meaning from corners of the internet that most people scroll past. In If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You, she blends Gothic mystery with sharp cultural critique to reveal the strange, aching humanity behind the creator economy. 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
This information about If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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.
If you liked If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You, try these:
by Dwyer Murphy
Published 2026
When a group of old college friends reunites for a summer vacation at a beach house in coastal Massachusetts, a sudden disappearance and the arrival of a seductive stranger threaten to unearth the darkest secrets of their relationships.
by Liann Zhang
Published 2026
In this razor-sharp, diabolical debut thriller, a young woman steps into her deceased twin's influencer life, only to discover dark secrets hidden behind her social media façade.
by Frankie Barnet
Published 2025
In a pre-apocalyptic world not unlike our own, a young Instagram poet starts an affair with a California billionaire who's promised a time machine that will make everything normal again—whatever that means.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
