THE JULIAN GAME
by Adele Griffin
Out of boredom, Raye and her best friend Natalya create a phony Facebook profile for a college freshman named Elizabeth Lavenzck. Elizabeth becomes Raye’s way into the in-crowd when Raye is recruited to tutor the popular, beautiful Ella Parker in Mandarin. Ella plans to use Elizabeth’s profile to trap and humiliate hottie Julian Kilgarry, who two-timed her at a party. Raye is thrilled to be a part of Ella’s queen-bee group, but she’s faced with making a decision between Julian and her social standing when she falls for him, especially since Julian seems to reciprocate her feelings. After Ella makes Raye’s life hell, Natalya gives Raye the key to bringing Ella down, a key Raye isn’t sure she wants to use. Themes of cyberbullying and social manipulation are made all the more sinister. Ella’s complete lack of conscience combines with her beauty and charisma to make it easy for readers to understand how she came to be feared as well as popular. Griffin portrays Raye’s soul-searching convincingly; readers will identify with her acute consciousness of her outsider status, which makes her inner struggle both compelling and sympathetic. (Fiction. YA)