The Takedown

May 1, 2017
Wang’s smart, technocentric debut—Gossip Girl meets M.T. Anderson’s Feed—addresses identity, public perception, and social media skewering. Senior Kyle Cheng and her beautiful, popular friends are as loathed as they are adored at their swanky Brooklyn prep school. Kyle’s grades are top notch, and she excels in her extracurricular activities, but she has enemies; after someone releases a video of her having sex with a teacher it immediately goes viral and upends Kyle’s existence, even as she insists it’s fake. Wang sets Kyle’s story in the near future, inventing all-too-believable tech that has rendered privacy obsolete; “unplugging” is a concept of the distant past. Kyle has a memorable narrative voice that’s catty, funny, and somewhat detestable (“You’re probably not gonna like me,” she warns readers as the book begins), and Kyle’s determination to unmask her tormentor will have readers riveted. As Kyle grows increasingly famous, judged globally as both slut and feminist hero, Wang takes on stereotypes of women and girls while creating a vision of the future that will chill readers for its prescience. Ages 14–up. Agent: Sarah Burnes, Gernert Company.

March 1, 2017
A fresh take on a tired high school trope.Living in a technologically advanced near-future Brooklyn, 17-year-old Kyla Cheng, better known as Kyle, has it all: top grades, popularity, three fabulous best friends, and the attention of Mackenzie Rodriguez. But in one click, she risks losing everything when a video of her and her English teacher having sex surfaces. Even though Kyle knows the video is fake, no one else seems to believe her. As the views reach astronomical heights and Kyle ascends to internet infamy, her only option is to figure out how to take down the video--with or without the help of her friends. A key player in this mystery is the pervasive nature of technology and social media, which has boomed to encompass all aspects of life in the future. Wang brilliantly balances the complexity of lives lived online, teenage relationships and insecurities, and the double standard of slut shaming. In this world, and reflecting demographic projections, most people are multiracial, a fact which is sometimes strangely emphasized. A classmate who has two white parents is mockingly styled "Aryan Audra"; Kyle herself is half Chinese, half French. A thought-provoking, entertaining read, Wang's debut illustrates a future that is easily conceivable. (Science fiction. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from April 1, 2017
Gr 9 Up-The near future in this novel is just close enough to feel incredibly eerie. Wang's characters are plugged in to a degree that will leave some readers exhilarated and others delightfully spooked. Kyla Cheng and her three best friends are uber-popular girls who constantly use their Docs (next-next-next-gen iPhones) for absolutely everything. Sounds familiar, but the reach of this version of social networking is far greater than anything readers will have experienced, having become not only unavoidable but also unavoidably public. Kyla becomes the victim of an elaborate game of revenge when a cyberbully circulates a fabricated sex video of Kyla and everyone's favorite young teacher. Using technology not available to the general public, the cyberbully leaves no doubt in anyone's mind that the video is real. Desperate to reclaim her reputation as a community activist, Ivy League-bound student, and future presidential candidate, Kyla, along with her loyal boyfriend, Mackenzie Rodriguez, teams up with friendly hackers to take down the video and her cyberbully. While the tech details may, at times, disrupt the flow of the plot for some teens, Wang has managed to write an exciting, prescient story that brings to mind the unlikely combination of M.T. Anderson's Feed, Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, and Sara Shepard's -Pretty Little Liars- series, with a little of Libba Bray's -Gemma Doyle- trilogy and the cult classic film Heathers thrown in the mix. VERDICT Highly recommended for all YA collections.-Nora G. Murphy, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, CA

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.