Review : #scandal by Sarah Ockler

Summary (from Goodreads)

Title : #scandal
Author : Sarah Ockler
Publication Date : June 17th 2014
Publisher : Simon Pulse
Goodreads - Amazon - Barnes & Noble

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...

Personal Thoughts

*Sighs* I've loved all of Sarah Ockler's books that I've read and I was itching to read #scandal because she's one of my favorite authors. The disappointment I experienced after finishing this book made me want to go sob in a corner because there's nothing more I hate than having to give a negative review to an author I like. As hard as I tried to enjoy this book, I simply couldn't.

#scandal had a promising theme of cyber bullying, that was never explored to its full extent. That was my number one problem. I thought that the characters in the book took this very serious issue way too lightly. I could have gotten by with the teenagers not taking it seriously, but the school's principal? This woman was a joke of a principal and a shame to those devoted principals out there. She spent her time on freaking Facebook instead of doing her job even when she had students discussing important issues in her office. Quite frankly, she was a complete joke and I'm not sure what the author was trying to represent through her, but whatever it was I didn't get it at all. I also never felt attached to any of the characters for some reason. I wanted to like Lucy, I really did, but she was just so bland and I don't know, just really boring. She lacked that spark that Sarah Ockler's previous heroines had. I did like Franklin, a guy that Lucy befriends once she faces the scandal and to be honest, he might be the only one I liked.

I went into #scandal expecting more of a romance, which was barely there. Cole and Lucy were supposed to be in love with each other, and they even declare their love for each other, but I never got to see that love in front of me. Cole was barely even present in the book and the few scenes they had did nothing to prove to me that their love was genuine. See, I know Sarah Ockler can write fantastic romances, but what happened here? This romance was so flat, something I never thought I would use to describe a Sarah Ockler book. I actually struggled to finish the book because I was bored out of my mind, but I continued hoping it would get better. The mystery involved with Lucy's scandal was also very glaringly obvious especially since the author dropped a huge, hard-to-miss hint in the beginning.

In the end, I just didn't feel like there was anything that truly captured my attention with #scandal. I'm disappointed and sad that I didn't enjoy it, but I hope you readers do find some redeeming qualities in it.

Rating

Cover : 3/5
Plot : 1/5
Characters : 2/5
Writing : 3/5

Thank you to Edelweiss and Simon Teen for the e-ARC of #scandal.