A teenager fed up with the consequences of her actions creates an anonymous blog and asks readers to take control of her life choices.
As a toddler, Brooklyn Pierce followed a lizard into a mineshaft, and her multi-day rescue operation received national television coverage. Now, having just burned down her realtor mother's model home in an ill-fated drunken party, Brooklyn is grounded, socially exiled and sentenced to 200 hours of community service. That decision-making is the issue at hand is impressed on readers at every corner, from the police officer who says of her mineshaft misstep, “I bet you regret that decision, huh?” to the You Choose the Story novels Brooklyn reads to Miss Moody, a cantankerous resident at the assisted-living facility where Brooklyn does her community service. Putting her every decision to a vote on her blog forces Brooklyn into new territory: She joins the debate team, hangs out with nerds to whom she has previously given the cold shoulder and forgoes sneaking out despite an invitation from a hot newcomer. That her blog becomes popular enough to go viral is difficult to believe, but the tugs she feels between her new life and her old one, her own decision-making and her readers', create engaging drama.
A pleasant, if gimmicky, romantic comedy. (Fiction. 12-15)
