The List by Yomi Adegoke
The List by Yomi Adegoke
The power of social media to make and break you is the subject of her much-anticipated debut novel. Ola and Michael are a young, Insta-famous couple, “the king and queen of #BlackLove”. One month before their wedding, a roll call of men working in the UK media who have been identified as sexual abusers and predators is posted on Twitter.
Michael’s name is on the list, which quickly goes viral. Overnight, reputations are shattered. Michael claims he’s done nothing wrong; Ola, a high-profile feminist journalist at a magazine called Womxxxn, asks him to prove it before their impending £20,000 nuptials. The List is narrated from both their perspectives.
In the following days, their mutual trust is eroded. Once the trial-by-Twitter is set in motion, there is no stopping the online scrutiny and trolling. Michael’s fall from grace appears inevitable: “How could a minority of people be talking about the List and yet it seemed as though the whole world was whispering about him?”