Welcome to Litsy!

I would 100% use this book as a mentor text. If it didn‘t fit into the schedule, it would be kept on the bookshelf and recommended to every student for non-fiction find. Students don‘t always like the idea of non fiction so this book is a great chance to show them how relevant it is to them and how it can be interesting. Slater‘s writing style is encouraging and fresh for young audiences.

Charles is representative of individuals who exist everywhere and more harmful than most can imagine. I'm so glad Slater draws attention to what happened in the context of how it happened. But not only did she focus on Charles but she really gave the entire narrative of events context and due diligence to ensure that the points were made accurately and fairly. There‘s a lot to say about integrity there.

I wanted a little more from the perspectives of the girls who were targeted, but I get what the book is doing. It‘s trying to show how a whole culture can create space for this kind of thing to happen. Still, the strong focus on the perpetrators rather than the victims felt a bit odd to me. I think hearing the girls' stories would add another layer to an already dense situation.

This is the kind of book that gets stuck in your head. Not even entirely because of what happened, but because it keeps asking the reader to think. What does it mean to be responsible? What happens when people get hurt and there is no easy fix? I kept pausing to think about my own high school and how things played out there, both in my personal life and in the lives of people I know.

The short chapters and shifting voices made the book easier to digest, even when the topic is rather heavy. I didn't breeze through it, but I don't think that's the point. Slater takes her time showing how complicated accountability can be for teens trying to belong. Being from a small town with a lot of racism present, I have seen firsthand how that sort of hate gets taught and passed down from generation to generation.

One of the few nonfiction books I've actually liked recently! It reads like a 60 Minutes documentary and does a great job at keeping readers engaged and invested with real people. No sides are TAKEN, but each side has a story REPRESENTED well. There are so many valuable lessons/info. about racism, the impacts of social media, and how people in a community are all connected. I would definitely have this in my classroom; there's so much to learn!

“The thing that made it so surreal was that everybody knew each other...“ (p. 233). — The interconnectivity of every person and event in this book makes it even more of a microcosm of how social media can impact the greater community too. It gives an important lesson for students on how their actions impact others whether they know it or not. There's a lot of lessons to make here involving relationship dynamics, cause and effect, and social media!

Aside from the obvious topic of racism, I noticed the author discussing gender with the account's poster and followers. Their choices were often brushed aside b/c they were “just boys being dumb“ and trying to adhere to the dynamics of male friend groups, but this is not an excuse of their actions toward (primarily) women of color. With this, students could explore how privileged vs. nonprivileged identities experience these scenarios differently.

The realness of this novel is a quality unlike the type of novels I read in middle and high school, but it is so desperately needed in those spaces. In an age of technological advances, including an explosion of social media platforms, YA readers need to understand the inherent risks and potential consequences that accompany social media usage. I believe that Slater suitably addresses the real-world impacts of likes, comments, posts, reposts, etc.

One of the things that actually made this nonfiction book a bearable and even ENJOYABLE read was the pacing. With short chapters each packed with a lot of information and new discoveries, I FLEW through this book, which surprised me given my hesitancy with nonfiction! There were also different formats of chapters, like poems and lists, which made it more entertaining too. Stuff like this can really boost engagement for newer readers to the genre!