Nook Book, 288 pages
Release Date: May 21, 2013
Published by: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Standalone
Source: Bought
For fans of: Realistic Fiction, Contemporary, Romance, YA
Ashleigh’s boyfriend, Kaleb, is about to leave for college, and Ashleigh is worried that he’ll forget about her while he’s away. So at a legendary end-of-summer pool party, Ashleigh’s friends suggest she text him a picture of herself — sans swimsuit — to take with him. Before she can talk herself out of it, Ashleigh strides off to the bathroom, snaps a photo in the full-length mirror, and hits “send.”
But when Kaleb and Ashleigh go through a bad breakup, Kaleb takes revenge by forwarding the text to his baseball team. Soon the photo has gone viral, attracting the attention of the school board, the local police, and the media. As her friends and family try to distance themselves from the scandal, Ashleigh feels completely alone — until she meets Mack while serving her court-ordered community service. Not only does Mack offer a fresh chance at friendship, but he’s the one person in town who received the text of Ashleigh’s photo — and didn’t look.
Acclaimed author Jennifer Brown brings readers a gripping novel about honesty and betrayal, redemption and friendship, attraction and integrity, as Ashleigh finds that while a picture may be worth a thousand words . . . it doesn’t always tell the whole story. (From Goodreads)
*MY THOUGHTS*
In this day and age, EVERYONE is plugged in. From me, to my mom, to even my grandmother. Everything in the world is done on computers and everyone I know has some type of a cell phone. And this story proves that that is not always a good thing.
In this story, we meet Ashleigh, a girl who is sitting in community service due to a situation that spiraled out of her control. She took a picture of herself in the nude and sent it to her then boyfriend. After a nasty break up, he sent it to one person and naturally, the entire school sent it out, seen it, or told someone else about it. Although she feels that no one understands her and that no one will ever speak to her again, she meets one person who turns her world upside down.
With this being my first Brown novel, I was excited to begin it. I had heard so many great things about it, but none of the comments I got could actually compare to the greatness that is this book. I loved absolutely everything about this book. What I loved most was the emotional roller-coaster of this book. Brown took me way past the normal feels of happy and sad, and took me to bigger things like scared, in love, and upset.
Another thing I really loved about this was how relevant it was. This story couldn’t have come at a better time. With so much of the world being “plugged in,” this is happening way more than it should. Brown completes the difficult task of showing what happens to everyone involved in the sending of the text.
This story reminded me of a Lifetime movie I watched once, but with a much better result. Ashleigh was able to meet the one person who ignored the text. Not because they didn’t get it, but because it was the right thing to do. He reminds Ashleigh that even though things are so bad, other people out in the world sometimes have it worse than you do. And also that no matter where you go and what happens to you, everywhere you go, you will always find a friend.
In this story Brown has written a brilliant realistic fiction novel that should be used as required reading in schools. To show the children all about “sexting” and the pain it causes everyone in a non-teachy way.
