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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