Queen of Likes by Hillary Homzie - ADVISABLE

Homzie, Hillary Queen of Likes, 259 pgs. Simon and Schuster, 2016.  Language: G (0 swears, 0”f”); Mature Content: G; Violence: G. 

7th grader Karma is the Queen of social media.  She has more followers on Snappypic than anyone she knows.  It’s a lot of work posting pictures and managing her accounts.  But when her mom finds her hiding in a restroom instead of attending her friend’s bar mitsvah, Karma loses her phone and her Snappypic account. Now she’s not only lost her followers, but she’s having a hard time being publicity chair of spirit week. Maintaining her standing with the popular crowd is almost impossible without the ability to send and receive text messages. But she’s enjoying her new volunteer job at the History Museum and her class in photography is wonderful, so, maybe being “disconnected” is a good thing.  

Part of the Aladdin Mix series, this clean read looks at the distractions of social media. I loved that the popular group weren’t mean girls. Homzie has a good grasp of middle school voice, and the everyday problems of these young teenagers and achieves it without any swearing or mature talk. 

MS - ADVISABLE  Lisa Librarian