Sunday, August 27, 2017

Antisocial by Jillian Blake - OPTIONAL

Blake, Jillian Antisocial, 249 pgs. Delacorte Press (Random), 2017. $17.99 Language – R (127 swears, 8 “f”), Mature Content – PG13; Violence – PG; 

At Alexandria Preparatory Academy, tech-savvy students do everything on their phones; they even have a school app to keep them aware of scheduling and other boring, need-to-know information. Unnoticeable to the makers and users of this school-use app, however, this app is also making possible these students’ worst nightmare: being hacked. With all phone activity having been recorded after the initial download of the school app, secrets are now getting out and gossipers are going crazy. No one can hide behind carefully constructed facades anymore.

At first, I wasn’t enjoying Antisocial because of all the mud-dragging and online bullying that was going on. These sorts of hacks are not funny in real life nor fictionalized settings. However, all that bashing is necessary to get to Blake’s main point, revealed in the final couple chapters of the book. The ending brought it all together and changed my outlook on Antisocial. I can now say that I enjoyed it a lot, and I think that Blake has a lot of good points about being more careful online and more focused on the positive side of things.

HS – OPTIONAL. Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

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