The Julian Game

July 12, 2010
National Book Award–finalist (Where I Want To Be) Griffin starts her perceptive novel when Raye and her best friend, Natalya, two "pretty much invisible" sophomores at their elite all-girls school, create a fictional Facebook persona, Elizabeth, who is sexy, bold, and quickly popular online with the boys coveted by the Group, the popular girls at school. When Raye tries to ingratiate herself with Ella, a member of the Group, she gets enlisted in a revenge plot against Ella's ex, Julian. By acting as Elizabeth, Raye gets close to Julian and ends up confessing that Elizabeth is an invention, which brings them closer but turns Raye into Ella's enemy. Ella's revenge is fierce, and when Julian refuses to stand by her, Raye is left to see who her true friends are and what she is made of. Canny use of details makes Griffin's characters fully realized and believable; Ella, for instance, pairs a stereotypical mean girl personality with obsessive-compulsive quirks, an uneasy combination that underscores her unpredictability. There are darker, more powerful stories of cyber-bullying out there, but strong pacing and a sympathetic protagonist ought to keep readers hooked. Ages 12–up.

July 1, 2010
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)

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October 1, 2010

Gr 8 Up-Raye Archer, a scholarship student at the prestigious Fulton School, can't say no when popular girl Ella Parker approaches her for help with Mandarin. But what starts as peer tutoring turns into quasi-friendship when Raye offers Ella access to her secret weapon: a Facebook profile for gorgeous but imaginary Elizabeth Lavenzck, connected to the hot guys at MacArthur school, created with the help of her friend Natalya. When Ella wields Elizabeth for revenge on MacArthur heartthrob Julian, using Raye to pose for revealing candid shots of Elizabeth, she doesn't anticipate that Julian might just fall for Raye. Griffin mines familiar territory-cyberbullying and mean girls-in a novel brimming with deception and manipulation. Readers will relate to Raye's outsider status and sympathize with her as she becomes the new target for Ella's revenge. While Raye's friendship with Natalya at times seems underdeveloped and convenient, the book is tightly written and plotted, and its clever cover will help sell it to readers. While the mean girl behavior doesn't approach that in Courtney Summers's Some Girls Are (St. Martin's Griffin, 2010), Griffin's novel has much to offer readers looking for a twist on the typical prep school coming-of-age story.-Jennifer Barnes, formerly at Homewood Library, IL

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2010
Grades 8-12 Raye Archer is warily thrilled when Ella, queen bee at her tony new school, enlists her to seek revenge against gorgeous heartbreaker Julian. With pictures of Raye in a blue wig and slinky top, they create a fictitious online profile (so different from Rayes low-key, real-life persona); lure Julian into a relationship; and act out Ellas vindictive schemes. The results are predictable: in online chats, Raye falls for Julian, confesses their deceit, and faces Ellas full-force campaign of vitriolic harassment. Griffin elevates the mean-girl plot with spot-on insights into teen social politics and quirky, multidimensional characters, including troubled, OCD Ella. The potent details of cyberbullying may eventually date this title, but Griffins timely cautionary messages about online communication, including its permanence (One stupid picture could swing back around and punch me when Im 30 years old), are never too heavy-handed, and her themes about the appeal of reinventing oneself, the frightening power of manipulation, the futility of revenge, and the true meaning of friendship are timeless.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)