Publisher: Delacourte Press
Date of publication: May 2017
Alexandria Prep is about to be exposed.
Senior spring was supposed to mean sleeping through class and partying with friends. But for Anna Soler, it’s going to be a lonely road. She’s just been dumped by her perfect basketball star boyfriend—with no explanation. Anna’s closest friends, the real ones she abandoned while dating him, are ignoring her. The endearing boy she’s always had a complicated friendship with is almost too sympathetic.
But suddenly Anna isn’t the only one whose life has been upended. Someone is determined to knock the kings and queens of the school off their thrones: one by one, their phones get hacked and their personal messages and photos are leaked. At first it’s funny—people love watching the dirty private lives of those they envy become all too public.
Then the hacks escalate. Dark secrets are exposed, and lives are shattered. Chaos erupts at school. As Anna tries to save those she cares about most and to protect her own secrets, she begins to understand the reality of our always-connected lives:
I had high hopes for Antisocial. I went into the book thinking it was gong to be a mystery along the lines of Pretty Little Liars or One of Us is Lying. At a small prep school, someone starts leaking the secret texts and e-mails of the students to the rest of the school causing friendships to fail and general chaos everywhere.
I am a bit iffy on whether or not I liked this one. Honestly, had it not been such a quick read, I probably would have DNF'd it about halfway through. It was OK. It wasn't the mystery I thought I was getting. I called the "leaker" pretty much right away. I guess the positives that I could say about it is that the story is a cautionary tale on the power of social media. How the face we put forth on-line is usually nothing like the face we have behind the screen. In that aspect, the author did a great job of getting that message across. It could also be a lesson for teens out there that just because you sleep with him doesn't mean he'll want to keep seeing you.
The story is told through the eyes of Anna in a first person narrative. I'm not sure that completely worked for me as I didn't really get to know much about any of the other characters except from Anna's perspective. In other words, I didn't really come to care about any of them. I found Anna annoying at times and disliked how she kept using her anxiety as an excuse. I think I felt most badly for Jethro. He really was the only genuinely nice one. The rest of her friend's were rather bitchy.
The biggest issue that I had with this book was the pop culture references that fill the pages of this book. I know that was probably done with the intention of making it relevant to the YA readers of today. However, this book will not hold up in probably 5 years. I definitely think this could have worked so much better without the continuous mention of the latest stars or movies or tv shows or scandal that are in the news. You all know how much of a pet peeve this is of mine. It really takes me right out of the story.
So, do I recommend this one? Sure. It wasn't horrible, just not the best YA I have read. I'd keep it to the older YA crowd. There is a lot of mature content.
Eh... I don't know about this one. But. I will say that the cover is kickass! Thanks for the review! And I hate when they just throw lots of pop culture references in. I felt like PLL had too much of that with the brand-name dropping.
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