Review- Want to Go Private?

Title: Want to Go Private?

Author: Sarah Darer Littman

Publisher: Scholastic

Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads

Source: ARC compliments of Scholastic

Abby and Luke chat online.  They've never met.  But they are going to. Soon.

Abby is starting high school--it should be exciting, so why doesn't she care?  Everyone tells her to "make an effort," but why can't she just be herself.  Abby quickly feels like she's losing grip on her once-happy life.  The only thing she cares about anymore is talking to Luke, a guy she met online, who understands.  It feels dangerous and yet good to chat with Luke--he is her secret, and she's his.  Then Luke asks her to meet him, and she does.  But Luke isn't who he says he is.  When Abby goes missing, everyone is left to put together the pieces.  If they don't, they'll never see Abby again.

My thoughts:

Want to Go Private? was absolutely realistic and horrific.  It literally scared the pants off me and made me so happy that I survived my teenage years even though I chatted a lot on the internet with people I didn't know.  This book make me realize all the horrendous things that could have happened and I'm so lucky that they didn't.  

Once Abby hits high school, her and her best friend don't have any classes together, her best friend makes other friends easily but Abby has a hard time.  She's feeling left out, lonely, overwhelmed and as a result she's vulnerable to the online predator who sees these weaknesses and targets her immediately.  He tells her all the things that she wants to hear like they both listen to the same music, like the same movies, he understands how much high school sucks and that her parents are putting too much pressure on her.  That's pretty much all she needs to hear and she completely attaches herself to him.  

Although this book is graphic, it speaks the truth of what happens to teenage girls when they're targeted by online predators and they fall into their trap.  The only reason I wold recommend this book to a teenager, and I mean an older teenager, is so they can know and understand what can happen if they're not careful.  This book was amazing and every parent of teenagers should read it and then put some regulations on their kid's internet use.