Three Australian girls deal with devastating attacks on a gossip website.
Clem is struggling with her self-esteem, her weight, and her role on the swim team. Kate tries to find the courage to audition for an overseas music program while cramming for an academic scholarship exam that would allow her to remain at her expensive boarding school. Ady just wants everything to go back to normal and for her home life to stop spiraling out of control. When the three are grouped together in a wellness class, they at first are none too enthused. Worse, they’ve all been targeted by the shady, misogynistic gossip site PSST. Bisexual Ady’s father struggles with cocaine addiction, Clem is plus size, and Kate comes from a poorer family than her classmates. Each of their narratives deals with emotionally intense subjects, including extreme misogyny, body shaming, unhealthy relationships, and addiction. Sixteen-year-old Clem’s storyline focuses on thinking you are more of an adult than you really are as she gets into uncomfortable situations with her 19-year-old boyfriend. Talented cellist Kate’s is centered around the idea of expectations, both her expectations of others and their expectations of her. Ady’s deals with having your foundations taken away and discovering who you really are. These three disparate narratives, told through alternating first-person chapters interspersed with school assignments and excerpts from PSST, form a solid braid, perfectly reflecting the nature of the bond the girls forge. Main characters read as White.
Compelling and relevant.
(Fiction. 14-18)