Katie King
Written on Dec 30, 2016
When pictures of Lucy kissing her best friend's boyfriend emerge on the world of social media, she becomes a social pariah after the scandal rocks the school.
- ISBN10 1481401246
- ISBN13 9781481401241
- Publish Date 17 June 2014
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Simon & Schuster
- Imprint Simon Pulse
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 416
- Language English
Reviews
girlinthepages
Written on Aug 21, 2014
#scandal was not initially on my TBR list. I was at the library picking up a hold when #scandal caught my eye on the newer-releases shelf, and having never read anything by Sarah Ockler I decided to give it a shot. Despite many readers warning me that #scandal is not Ocklers’ best novel, I rather enjoyed Ockler’s tackling of cyber bullying in this novel.
#scandal addresses a phenomena that’s all too common today- compromising party pics get uploaded online the morning after. That’s the catalyst for this novel, with Lucy’s cell phone getting stolen and her ending up taking the blame for someone uploading post-prom pics from her stolen phone. Lucy faces the fallout from her own friends, her classmates, her school administration, and other students’ parents, and the book takes on kind of a silly “whodunnit” vibe where she teams up with the stereotypical high school tropes (nerdy newspaper editor, anti-establishment club kids, etc) to clear her name. Meanwhile, there’s an online personality “Miss Demeanor” who adds fuel to the fire on her “scandal” page (gossip girl, anyone?).
I couldn’t figure out whether this book was supposed to be a satire or not. The characters sometimes speak in “texting” type lingo and Lucy has a lot of sarcastic asides. Couple this with the stereotyped classmates, a costume-party prom, a famous actress who happens to be an alumnus from their high school, the ridiculous slut shaming (someone creates a fan page in revenge called “Juicy Lucy”) and a school principle who can’t even manage her own social media, and the novel had was so ridiculous in some points it was absurd what was happening or being said. Yet once I decided to view this novel in a satirical light, I found myself enjoying the story much more. As a social commentary, this book brings up a lot of issues, such as teens paralleling the paparazzi influenced celebrity life and over-documenting their lives to the point of mutually assured social destruction. It also portrayed how the cycle of cyber-bullying is never ending, as Lucy the “bully” (or rather, as she’s framed) quickly becomes victimized through revenge Facebook pages, nasty altered images of her, and harassing threats and comments constantly left on her profiles. The alternative group (e)VIL, the anti-technology group of misfits at Lucy’s high school who reject all technology and jump on every conspiracy theory, may be painted as absurd but the other characters begin to see their point- technology allows the nastiest, most vengeful side of people to come out.
One thing that really frustrated me throughout the novel was Lucy’s constant neglect to stand up for herself. Since one of the pictures that got uploaded was of her kissing her best friend’s boyfriend (the situation isn’t even as bad as it seems, as you’ll find out later in the novel) she feels guilty and as if she “deserves” all of the consequences, harassment, and bullying. While she definitely made an error in judgement kissing Cole (who receives less than a quarter of the harassment as she does), it’s not an excuse for her to take the bullying and slut shaming lying down, and she neglects 90% of the opportunities to stand up for herself or to clear her name, and it’s constantly her friends defending her. So while I liked that the book addressed cyber bullying, it dropped the ball by having a protagonist who allowed herself to be railroaded by unfair harassment.
Overall: Despite the fact that this book had too many issues to juggle (cyber bullying, slut shaming, a romance, family issues, and a brief side plot of sexual harassment) I found myself to enjoy Ockler’s satirical approach (if that in fact was what she meant to do) and found myself continuing the book because I wanted to find out who made the reputation-ruining move for so many people by simply pushing an “upload” button. I think there’s probably better books out there that tackle cyber bullying and harassment but Ockler’s book is an OK addition to the YA shelves, suffering mainly due to a lack of confidence from her protagonist.
This review was originally posted at Girl in the Pages
bookishzelda
Written on Jun 12, 2014
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.
Leah
Written on May 18, 2014
#scandal is the first book I’ve seen to make use of a hashtag in a book title but I doubt it will be the last and #scandal definitely brings together the worst of social media. I love Facebook, Twitter, all that malarkey, but I’m lucky in the way that social media wasn’t so big when I was in school – in fact it wasn’t even invented (and I’m only 24, before anyone worries I’m literally ancient). I never got to see the wrong side of social media in action, which I’m eternally grateful for because as proven with Lucy’s story, social media can be the devil, if it falls into the wrong (jealous, manipulative, bitchy) hands.
Lucy’s take is a cautionary one – if you’re at a prom (and a prom after party) keep your phone superglued to your chest. Because if you lose your phone, evil people will steal it and upload so many incriminating photos that your final few weeks of high school with be a living hell… I felt super sorry for Lucy, she’s my kinda girl – more at home kicking zombie ass, and doesn’t have the biggest social circle on the world which made her #scandal all the more awful because her two best friends Ellie and Griffin pretty much desert her, which is pretty crappy – if your friends really are your friends, they’ll get your opinion before judging, and I felt Lucy’s friends really let her down.
Enter help in other forms – when Lucy decides to find out who uploaded the photos of her kissing Ellie’s boyfriend Cole, she enlists the help somewhat unwittingly of (E)vil, a group at her school Lav Oaks who think social media is evil (rightly so in this case) along with journalist Franklin, a Brit determined to sniff out the truth. I loved the intermingling of Lucy and the (E)vil group. It’s easy to judge them as nerds but they’re super sweet and their cause is hardly wrong, although they go about things in entirely the wrong way, which is sometimes hilarious and always entertaining because their hearts are all in the right place. I also really liked Franklin, I admired his honesty, and how he just wanted to help.
I guessed most of the plot twists in #scandal, I guessed who the Gossip-Girl-esque Miss Demeanour was waaaaay before everyone else was told and I eventually caught on to who had uploaded Lucy’s photos, but it was a fun, if telling journey. Ockler has done a good job of portraying the world of social media in all it’s evil forms because it’s not always this awesome place to share everything that’s happening in your world, it can be a minefield. It can be damaging, and it resonated with me a lot. Being a teenager is hard anyway, without the internet watching. I immensely enjoyed #scandal, it was a bit too light at times – but I really liked it and I absolutely loved Prince Freckles, he was my honorary favourite character, you’ll understand when you read the book!
Rowena
Written on Feb 4, 2014
Ashley
Written on Nov 26, 2013
I thought this was going to be an awesome book for me. A gamer girl, social media, hackers, scandals, a little Nancy Drew, and a romance! OHMYGOD those are all Ashley things and you might as well put a ribbon on this book and send it to me because it sounds PERFECT!
Well in reality, #scandal wasn't perfect. I'd say it really fell flat for me and I'm TOTALLY bummed out. :(
Here are all the reasons why #scandal didn't work for me:
The romance
There were two massive problems with this romance:
1. Lucy is obsessed with Cole before the story starts. This means there's no "crush" phase or "I think I might like you" phase. It just opens up and it's BAM! "I've loved him my whole life." These kinds of romances are always 10x harder for me to relate to because I, as a reader, didn't get that "crush" phase and I need it badly! I need a chance to warm up to the guy and fall for him myself, but I never get it.
2. Cole is actually barely in the book! It was bad enough that Lucy was gaga for him before the story started, but then Cole just slipped in and out whenever he felt like it. It seemed like he was absent for at least half the story. I even forgot about him for a while, then I was like, "Oh yeah, that guy exists."
Add those two points together, and you have a very sloppy romance that's super hard (or impossible) to like or connect to. I didn't like Cole. I didn't KNOW Cole. I never freaking got the chance to see Cole. But somehow I'm supposed to put up with and relate to Lucy's obsession with him... yeah that didn't happen.
Oh, also, Lucy is obsessed with him, but she also spends half the book ignoring him.
Cole tried calling and texting me a few times this weekend, but I ignored them.
Lucy
It made her seem kind of bitchy. Like, "Oh I don't have time to reply to his 5 texts over the weekend. I'll just ignore them." Who does that?
The mystery
So there are two big mysteries in #scandal: who is the Facebook sensation "Miss Demeanor"; and who stole Lucy's phone and posted the prom party pictures on her Facebook?
I thought both of them were obvious. Okay, so I didn't know either one from the get-go, but I did guess who Miss Demeanor was VERY early, and I figured out who stole Lucy's phone about halfway through (well I was confident it was either Ellie or Griffin, and it was Griffin.).
Also, this is a total technicality, but the whole thing was about "finding the hacker!" Stealing someone's phone, which is logged into Facebook, and uploading photos through there is NOT hacking. It's just stealing.
The friendship
It's entirely possible that I just SUCK at "girl code" or something, but I thought Lucy's friendship with Ellie was weird. Here's the low down:
Ellie begs Lucy to go to prom with ELLIE'S boyfriend (weeeiiird) because Ellie is sick. First of all, if I were Ellie, I'd never ask my friend to go to prom with my boyfriend in my place O_O That's just freaking weird. And if I were Cole and my girlfriend was sick, I'd be at her bedside, not partying at prom.
Then, Lucy and Cole kiss at prom.
But later we find out that Ellie and Cole had broken up BEFORE prom (this isn't a spoiler, we learn it very early on). So now we have a few weird things:
* Ellie and Cole broke up and Ellie didn't think to tell her best friend.
* Lucy and Cole kissed, but that doesn't mean that Lucy backstabbed Ellie or that Cole cheated, because Ellie and Cole were broken up.
And yet... Lucy still feels EXTREMELY guilty for having kissed Cole, and Ellie is still EXTREMELY pissed at Lucy for having done it... BUT ELLIE AND COLE WEREN'T EVEN DATING!! She sent her best friend to prom with her NOW SINGLE boyfriend and expected nothing to happen? Okay, I'm sure there's some girl code that says, "You don't kiss your best friend's ex-boyfriend after they just broke up." But given that they were in fact broken up, I really didn't think it was that big of a deal. Or maybe I'd just make a shit best friend.
The Verdict: