Author: Sarah Ockler
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release Date: June 17th 2014
Lucy’s learned some important lessons from tabloid darling Jayla Heart’s all-too-public blunders: Avoid the spotlight, don’t feed the Internet trolls, and keep your secrets secret. The policy has served Lucy well all through high school, so when her best friend Ellie gets sick before prom and begs her to step in as Cole’s date, she accepts with a smile, silencing about ten different reservations. Like the one where she’d rather stay home shredding online zombies. And the one where she hates playing dress-up. And especially the one where she’s been secretly in love with Cole since the dawn of time.
When Cole surprises her at the after party with a kiss under the stars, it’s everything Lucy has ever dreamed of… and the biggest BFF deal-breaker ever. Despite Cole’s lingering sweetness, Lucy knows they’ll have to ’fess up to Ellie. But before they get the chance, Lucy’s own Facebook profile mysteriously explodes with compromising pics of her and Cole, along with tons of other students’ party indiscretions. Tagged. Liked. And furiously viral.
By Monday morning, Lucy’s been branded a slut, a backstabber, and a narc, mired in a tabloid-worthy scandal just weeks before graduation.
Lucy’s been battling undead masses online long enough to know there’s only one way to survive a disaster of this magnitude: Stand up and fight. Game plan? Uncover and expose the Facebook hacker, win back her best friend’s trust, and graduate with a clean slate.
There’s just one snag—Cole. Turns out Lucy’s not the only one who’s been harboring unrequited love...
Teaser
#NotEvenClose
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture tagged on Miss Demeanor’s Scandal of the Month page is worth about a million. Especially when the story all those words tell is an absolute lie.
Well, mostly a lie.
The part about falling asleep in his arms is sort of true. I don’t remember the details about the horse, or how it got into the living room exactly, but judging from the smell that morning, that part’s true too. And yes, the Harvard-bound debate team captain definitely cannonballed into the pond wearing only tuxedo socks and silver fairy wings. Everyone got shots of that.
But there’s no way the other stuff happened.
Not like the pictures are saying it did.
Even though it becomes more of a background issue I really liked the situation that Lucy, Cole and Ellie have to deal with it. I mean this is something that not only teenagers deal with but also adults. What do you do when you think the person you belong with his with your best friend. I think it’s something that test your faith in love/destiny/fate and also friendship. I did wish there could have been a little more of the romance mixed in.
As Lucy begins to investigate who the really perp is in order to clear her name. She finds more than what she is looking for and by the end she realizes that it’s not really important how people see you in high school. It’s more about how you see yourself. Lucy goes from blaming everyone for what she considers a life ending scandal to realizing that she let facts she should be sharing and standing up for herself slip away.
I really like the dialogue in #Scandal because it often times made me laugh out loud. It’s just funny and witty. It really sets the scene for the high school vibe.
There are many characters that float through #Scandal, some we get to know better than others. Rather than Lucy and Cole being the leads, I felt like it was more of Lucy and her sister Jayla. They are really the two we get to know the most intimately. Ellie and Cole while there and we interact with them, I felt like we get to know them more through Lucy’s memories that involve them. Franklin and Griffin also play carry a little larger roles. I like that some of the side characters have their own issues that they need to deal with as well.
The pacing of the book is good. I never felt like things were moving too slowly or bored. I thought the different developments were interesting. Even though finding out who really uploaded the pictures was a big part of the intrigue I liked the other things going on as well.
I want to say #scandal is a fun read but the topic that it deals with really is not. With the funny dialogue it helps to lighten the mood and I liked how there were different underlying themes that Lucy deals with. I enjoyed it and it’s a good book for a summer reading list.
LUCY
Karen Gillan
COLE
Younger Alex Pettyfer
JAYLA
Caitlin Stasey
GRIFFIN
Saoirse Ronan
ELLIE
Adelaide Kane
FRANKLIN
Liam Hemsworth
MARCEAU
Taylor Kitsch
Okay so I totally cast him either not remembering or not noticing the Zombie thing. It made me laugh at the end of the book like the idea of him had been planted in my brain.
There are so many more characters that I didn't cast. John, Spence, Ash, Olivia
Sarah is a champion cupcake eater, coffee drinker, night person, and bookworm. When she's not writing or reading at home in Colorado, she enjoys taking pictures, hugging trees, and road-tripping through the country with her husband, Alex.
