While this is not my favorite Jennifer Brown novel, I do think the content about sexting is relevant. One of the high school counselors recommended that I read this novel, and when I told her I finished it but I didn't think the actions the school did are realistic, she told me that we should have the resource officer read it to see his viewpoint.
Ashleigh is a junior in high school, and at the end of the school year pool party where alcohol is involved, she is dared to take a naked picture of herself and text it to her boyfriend, Kaleb, so that he will pay more attention to her than his baseball team friends. (If that is all the guy thinks is important about you, dump him!) I think if Ashleigh wasn't drunk, she may have not made this poor choice. Her boyfriend leaves for college in the fall, and when Ashleigh would call him, he would say that he is busy or she would hear girls laughing in the background. Ashleigh thinks Kaleb is cheating on her and they begin fighting. They end up breaking up and he text her picture to his contacts who then forward it to their contacts. Everyone in the school ends up seeing Ashleigh naked, including her father, the superintendent.
Both Ashleigh and Kaleb are arrested for child pornography, and Brown shows us how Ashleigh deals with the aftermath.
Both Brown and I grew up in the 1980s without all the technology at our fingertips that the world has today, and I worry about all the girls who act before they think and then their information and pictures are out there for the world to view. I worry everyday about what my own children post on the Internet that could come back to haunt them in the future.
Girls think that just because you send that picture to your boyfriend doesn't mean that he won't send it to others where it can be posted on the Internet for anyone to see. Do you really want men your father's or grandfather's age seeing you like that?
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