FFBC: Welcome to the club, #scandal by Sarah Ockler

#scandal
by Sarah Ockler

Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release Date: June 17th 2014

Synopsis:

Lucy’s learned some important lessons from tabloid darling Jayla Heart’s all-too-public blunders: Avoid the spotlight, don’t feed the Internet trolls, and keep your secrets secret. The policy has served Lucy well all through high school, so when her best friend Ellie gets sick before prom and begs her to step in as Cole’s date, she accepts with a smile, silencing about ten different reservations. Like the one where she’d rather stay home shredding online zombies. And the one where she hates playing dress-up. And especially the one where she’s been secretly in love with Cole since the dawn of time.

When Cole surprises her at the after party with a kiss under the stars, it’s everything Lucy has ever dreamed of… and the biggest BFF deal-breaker ever. Despite Cole’s lingering sweetness, Lucy knows they’ll have to ’fess up to Ellie. But before they get the chance, Lucy’s own Facebook profile mysteriously explodes with compromising pics of her and Cole, along with tons of other students’ party indiscretions. Tagged. Liked. And furiously viral.

By Monday morning, Lucy’s been branded a slut, a backstabber, and a narc, mired in a tabloid-worthy scandal just weeks before graduation. 

Lucy’s been battling undead masses online long enough to know there’s only one way to survive a disaster of this magnitude: Stand up and fight. Game plan? Uncover and expose the Facebook hacker, win back her best friend’s trust, and graduate with a clean slate.

There’s just one snag—Cole. Turns out Lucy’s not the only one who’s been harboring unrequited love...

#NotEvenClose

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture tagged on Miss Demeanor’s Scandal of the Month page is worth about a million. Especially when the story all those words tell is an absolute lie.

Well, mostly a lie.

The part about falling asleep in his arms is sort of true. I don’t remember the details about the horse, or how it got into the living room exactly, but judging from the smell that morning, that part’s true too. And yes, the Harvard-bound debate team captain definitely cannonballed into the pond wearing only tuxedo socks and silver fairy wings. Everyone got shots of that.

But there’s no way the other stuff happened. 

Not like the pictures are saying it did.

Sarah Ockler is the bestselling author of novels for teens, including The Book of Broken Hearts, Bittersweet, Fixing Delilah, and the critically acclaimed Twenty Boy Summer, a YALSA Teens' Top Ten nominee and IndieNext List pick. Her latest, #scandal, hits the shelves in June 2014. 

Sarah is a champion cupcake eater, coffee drinker, night person, and bookworm. When she's not writing or reading at home in Colorado, she enjoys taking pictures, hugging trees, and road-tripping through the country with her husband, Alex.

ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac

Right now it’s a tie between Supernatural and The Walking Dead

The Lord of the Rings (all 3parts)

Let Down by Radiohead

Guacamole

Dean Winchester from Supernatural. But, like most fictional boyfriends, his boyfriend qualities don’t exactly translate from the screen to real life! I mean, would you really want to date someone who was constantly battling evil and driving too fast and drinking booze for breakfast and checking out other women? Probably not. But he sure is fun to watch on TV! ;-)

“Not all those who wander are lost.” –J.R.R. Tolkien

I fangirl over authors all the time, but last summer I had the opportunity to meet (and hug!) Michael Rooker, who plays Merle Dixon on The Walking Dead, and I was about one breath away from a total fangirl meltdown. J And if I ever met Jensen Ackles from Supernatural? Forget it! I’d go full-on crazy for that.

Anais Nin. Honestly, I’d probably fangirl all over her, too. But I’d try really hard to keep it classy and cool.

Thank you so much for reading and supporting #scandal, and for all you do to share your love of books with the world!

Hi Sarah! We are really happy to host you in our FFBC. We are super excited to have #scandal as part of our FFBC.

#scandal is kind of a mashup. Partly satire, partly serious, partly funny, a little mystery, a dash of romance. But it’s mostly about one slightly outcast girl coming to terms with her own judgmental ways in the aftermath of a social media scandal that she unwittingly caused. Sure, she’s the victim – someone stole her phone and posted incriminating pictures to her Facebook account – but the scandal forces her to really look at the things she’s done, said, and believed up to that point in her life – things that have harmed her friends and fellow classmates, and things she needs to come to terms with if she has any chance at a happy life.

I didn’t have to research anything too crazy, but I did have to research something I’ve had absolutely no experience with: school cyberbullying policies. There was no social media when I was a teen. No web. No cell phones or cell cameras or text messages. These days, most schools have specific rules and protocols in place to deal with any kind of on-campus cyberbullying. But, as Lucy learns in #scandal, often times the school can’t really do much for the victims, particularly if the bullying isn’t happening on school property or during school hours, or if they can’t figure out the source. That’s why Lucy decides to take matters into her own hands… for better or for worse!

Judgmental. Vulnerable. Conflicted. Love-struck. Evolving.

Aside from kissing scenes, which I always love to write, I had a lot of fun crafting Miss Demeanor’s Facebook posts, which appear randomly throughout the story. She’s the official high school gossip columnist of Lucy’s school, Lavender Oaks, and she’s got her own special brand of snark—not to mention her own hidden agenda. It was a lot of fun to let loose with her posts, poking a little fun at pop culture and high school in general.

Lucy would be played by Anna Kendrick. Hayden Panettiere would be the perfect Jalya Heart. I picture Tina Fey in the role of Principal Zeff. As for the other characters, I’m at a loss…. I don’t watch enough television or current movies to guess! I’ll let readers imagine their favorite male leads. I prefer the old school stuff, what can I say. ;-)

I’ll have to go with Lucy and Cole’s official song – Talk Tonight, by Oasis J

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