Aaron Starmer

Aaron Starmer writes fiction for young readers that moves between speculative adventure, dark comedy, and psychological suspense. Meme is a teen thriller about four Vermont high-school seniors who record a confession after killing their former friend Cole Weston and bury the phones with his body. When an image from the supposedly hidden video circulates as a meme, their pact begins to fracture. The four perspectives prevent the group's crime from settling into one reliable account. Dutton Books for Young Readers released Meme in 2020 for readers aged fourteen and older, and Julie Strauss-Gabel edited it. Sophie Amoss, Michael Crouch, Alex McKenna, and Everette Plen narrate the audio edition, giving the conspirators distinct voices. Starmer's broader work includes The Only Ones, Spontaneous, and the Riverman trilogy, books that similarly test young characters with strange premises and difficult moral choices. Meme uses digital culture not as decoration but as the mechanism that turns a concealed crime into a public, uncontrollable threat.