#Scandal

by Sarah Ockler

[Leah]

Sarah Ockler is an author I’ve been meaning to try for absolutely ages. I’ve got her debut novel (I think) Twenty Boy Summer on my shelf and it’s been there sooooo long but I just haven’t had the opportunity to pick it up, so when I spotted #scandal on Edelweiss, I thought it was the perfect novel to start with, especially as it brings together all of my most favourite things – social networks, scandals, a secret Gossip Girl type voice and references to Veronica Mars. Be still my beating heart!

#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!