Thursday, June 22, 2017

Internet Famous by Daniel Stone - OPTIONAL


Stone, Danika Internet Famous, 336 pages.  Swoon Reads (Macmillan), 2017.  $11.  Language: R (89 swears, 0 ‘f’), Mature Content: G; Violence: G. 

Madison’s blog has really taken off.  Her  #rewatch #funemployment has been doing double duty as her final project for her online Language Arts final project and connected her with a wide fan base all over the world.  Online school has been god-sent, allowing Madi to help her parents navigate the peculiarities of her younger, autistic sister.  Madi’s life starts to implode, however under a confluence of events:  her mother leaves for a teaching stint at Oxford without letting Sarah know until the night before; a new assistant principal has decided that Madi’s blog, because she earns money from followers clicking on links, violates the rules of her class contract and is not admissible for credit; she starts messaging a new MadLibs follower, Laurnet, and agrees to come to New York City for a live MadLibs rewatch – kind of falling for  Laurent and exposing her to MadLibs followers in person for the first time ever; an internet troll starts flaming and trollingcontroversy on her site, including trying to hijack the blog.

Had Stone eliminated the whole love-interest part of the story, I would much more enthusiastically endorsed this.  I see how it kind of helped with a part of the plot, and romance is a big seller for some types of readers, but it was one more issue in a book brimming with plot points.  At times I was rolling my eyes at Madi’s egocentric behavior – enough that I almost wanted the troll to take her down.  But, Stone does a pretty good job of showing the “look at me” attitudes of people who are internet famous.

HS – OPTIONAL.  Cindy, Library Teacher

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