In Antisocial by Jillian Blake someone is releasing secrets of the students at Alexandria Prep. At first people think it's funny until it starts happening to them. Friends are turning on friends. Anna has a secret of her own, and she's dreading when hers comes out. She and her friends work to stop the drama and find out who's doing it. It was an enjoyable read thought parts of the ending weren't super believable. I would definitely read another book by this author.

I loved this book! The full review will be posted soon at kaitgoodwin.com/books! Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity to connect books to their readers!

In my book, it’s always time for a YA thriller. Putting together the pieces of a mystery, trying to solve it just before or at the same time as the main character, watching everything get worse and worse right up to the climactic scene,… Maybe I’m a bit cruel, but as often as I read YA contemporary novels, YA thrillers and mysteries are a bit above them in my heart. Antisocial is a pretty good one with plenty of representation across the board and its realistic stakes will chill just about every reader.

I’ve always tried to be my best self online, but even I’m terrified at the idea of all my texts, emails, etc. being leaked online. Whether it would expose someone’s two-faced ways or provides enough evidence that they could be successfully convicted of a felony, everyone has something to fear if their name gets attached to their anonymous or private online shenanigans. Anna’s fear: the friends who are just barely starting to accept her back after she abandoned them for her boyfriend will learn how she insulted all of them when talking to him.

Antisocial is a tiny little book at 256 pages and perfectly paced so you’ll feel compelled to read it all in one sitting. In particular, Anna is an incredible character Latin@ and anxiety disorder-ridden readers hungry for representation will love. She’s half-Columbian, has social anxiety disorder, and had a stint in a group home, but she’s still determined to find out who’s leaking students’ online histories, which were gathered via an app the school required students to download. Turned out the app was gathering all their data and storing it and then someone found a hackable hole! Oops.

Even when her ex-boyfriend’s data gets leaked and she finds out how easily he dumped her when he wrecked her with the break-up, she still wants to help him. He has a form of OCD (pretty respectful and nonstereotypical, at that!) and they shared a kinship over their anxieties. No matter how much he hurt her, she’d rather do what’s right than revel in his humiliation. If I explained my history with an ex-friend, you’d quickly learn I wouldn’t be as good of a person in the same situation as Anna.

Too bad it has a lot of stereotypes and cliches going on among both the characters and the events. One twist of an event in particular toward the end of the book failed to make me feel anything at all when it was intended to be gut-wrenching. Honestly, it made me laugh and quote Heathers, which made fun of something very similar. It doesn’t ruin anything for either book or film to tell you I was giggling to myself and quoting “I LOVE MY DEAD GAY SON” as the twist’s aftermath played out.

My giggling was sandwiched between me groaning at how melodramatic and ridiculously corny the whole ending is. This is what Heathers was making fun of almost thirty years ago! Considering everything the data leaks caused at their school, trying to spin it as “everything will be sunshine and rainbows soon” makes me want to gag. You know who things won’t be okay for? The kid who made a podcast out of the leaks and delighted in it. He better change schools or he is screeeeeewed. No one’s gonna forgive him that easily for having fun with someone else’s humiliation.

All in all, Antisocial is a gripping thriller for the modern teen. Its ending may not have left me feeling anything other than mildly amused, but the core conceit of the story is what will make it memorable for readers and get the most praise. I’m excited to read more from Jillian Blake in the future and would recommend this for anyone whose hunger for thrillers still needs to be satiated or is in a bit of a reading slump. This tiny little thrill ride should cure you pretty easily!

It seemed interesting when I requested, but now I've seen too many books that use this sort of plot point to preach about millennial/teenagers and the superficial dangers of social media in a way that you can tell its an adult judging teens whose writing - that generalization combined with middling reviews makes me not to keen to actually get to this one.

I came into this book with kind of high expectations for a debut because it involved a mystery and social anxiety, two pretty awesome things (well, anxiety isn’t awesome, but portrayals of it are pretty cool).

It was nice seeing how Anna’s anxiety affected her on a daily basis and how she dealt with it, especially during such a stressful time (relationships ending and being renewed, personal information being exposed in a mass school hack, things like that), but I didn’t really care about the mystery – mainly because it didn’t feel like there was. Sure, we’re wondering who did it and all that, but there was a bigger focus on Anna’s personal life. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it wasn’t what I was expecting, so it left me a little disappointed. One of Anna’s best friends was also the type of pushy, all about sex best friend that I’ve become tired of in YA.

It wasn’t a bad debut, but it wasn’t what I was expecting, and that made it harder to look at it objectively. I’m curious to see what Blake writes next, though, so not all is lost.

This book was unfortunately not my taste so I did not complete it.

Despite having a brilliant premise and interesting plot, I couldn't get into Antisocial, which has been compared to Pretty Little Liars. I did however like the author's writing and the way that they had shaped the novel.

I tried reading this book but I didn't get very far in this book. Sadly this book and I didn't connect. DNF

This will go live on my blog on June 7. Kellyvision.wordpress.com

Anna is just trying to get through her senior year. Her boyfriend broke up with her and her friends are still mad that she ditched them for her boyfriend. And then a hacking scandal starts---someone is sharing all of her fellow students' secrets.

This was fun but very superficial. It was compared to Pretty Little Liars, and it does have that vibe. But while those books were over the top and incredibly entertaining, this one took itself a little too seriously. That's not a bad thing at all, but if you're going to compare yourself to those books, you need insane happenings.

I also didn't really connect with the characters. You don't need a sense of who they are to feel awful for them (no one wants their texts or Google search history broadcast, right?) but seriously. I should have wanted to cry at some of what happened.

It sounds like I hated it, right? I didn't. It was a perfectly entertaining novel. I just hoped for more.

Anna pretty much ditched her friends after getting herself a boyfriend and now that's its over she wants to go back to them. As you'd imagine some are okay with the idea and then there's some not interested but shes willing to make it work. Then in come a a list and then their classmates dirty little secrets being spilled. As every ones secrets expose Anna is doing everything she can to find out who it is before her secrets get outed knowing that it'll make her lose the friends shes trying to gain back.

I loved this book more then I thought it would. This book is pretty awesome in a way and will really make the readers think. I mean social media is a lot of peoples lives and so many things are say things and do things that aren't meant to be said for the public view and knowing that a person situation can be outed is pretty scary. Most things posted on the Internet will never go away and as many of the characters in this book were seniors looking towards their futures and collage and such it would really jeopardize that. So this book is pretty eye opening. I thought this would be a light read but I got something out of it. Then we got Anna as a character working through her anxiety and seeing how it impacted her and how shes working through things. Lastly when I hear about characters with anxiety they pop a pill to help themselves and not look for an outlet other then that which I thought was interesting. Overall this was a pretty great mystery book and I really enjoyed it.

Positives: The portrayal of mental illness. Our protagonist is vulnerable and self-critical. She finds herself less deserving of friendship, acceptance, etc. And yes, she's off meds. But not because she sees a problem with medicating. This is a course of action recommended by her doctor. She still has emergency meds and takes them if needed. Also, in the end there's no one villain, one guy trying to make their lives miserable. Rather its a statement on culture and the cruelty that social media can create.
Negatives: I think the conclusion is a bit overly optimistic. While I can believe that the majority of their texts and emails and whatnot were in fact kind, I find it hard to believe that learning this fact would bring the cruelty to an en, that they would suddenly be happy and friends again.

Antisocial was an okay read with a lot of promise that it didn't quite follow through on. Yes, it jad unlikable but interesting characters and some intriguing themes, but it was just a little basic and slow despite not being very long.

Received an advance copy from a Goodreads giveaway and Random House Children's Publishing and NetGalley! Antisocial by Jillian Blake- Goodreads giveaway; Anna Has social anxiety disorder and this is her tale of her school year of ups and downs. Last semester she spent all of her time with Palmer, her new boyfriend, while inadvertently ignoring her friends. Now after the breakup, she's trying to reconcile with her friends and some of them aren't making it easy for her. Jethro is an amazing friend to Anna and he knows what he wants. Anna's indecisiveness hurts Jethro and I kept thinking that she was throwing a great friendship away for a second time. Trying to figure out the story took me a bit, but once I understood where it was going, I dived right into the teen angst and emotional and relationship confusion. Oh, the joys of being a teenager. The regular teen rivalry increases to hateful when someone publicizes dirty laundry of a basketball player at a basketball game and then everyone jumps on the troll wagon. People and their secrets are exposed and friendships are ruined because of photos, texts, and all social media being revealed. Not only is this book a young adult contemporary but it's also a great mystery. The suspense builds while the community deals with the aftermath and continuing cyber bullying. The author's writing shows the complexity of the diverse characters and I grew to care about the main characters and my heart broke along with them and I also enjoyed their happy moments. 4 stars for this realistic fiction book!

Antisocial is the epitome of what teenagers have to deal with in the age of technology and social media. I was never someone who cared for social media in high school or even now and it's not like I was in high school too long ago. It's now that I'm in my twenties that I see what a big impact social media has cost us. People have committed suicide and destroyed lives because of what has been said on their screen. It's something I've only begun to understand until now. How there are people out there who feel isolated and alone with no one to talk to. And when you make a mistake where there was a picture taken - your life could be over. Antisocial helps you see this and more.

Anna, is a complicated person to like. She's come groveling back to her friends after she abandoned them for her boyfriend who happened to be popular. They shared similarities that no one else acknowledged - an intense social anxiety. I just happened to be watching this long video/documentary yesterday where it had multiple people with different forms of mental illness including Social Anxiety Disorder. Now it's different from really not wanting to go to places or see people. It's feeling extremely scared and worried in social situations with feelings of people judging you while you are judging yourself even more than I feel possible. We know the feeling growing up but it's way more intense. So I saw Anna this way and felt for her. But then she just left her friends. Stopped talking to them for no reason.

See? She's a complicated person to like.

During the story, there is a person or people that start hacking important players and start ruining their lives. I mean, they deserve it but it has a collateral effect on Anna's friend. More and more people's secrets are being exposed. Anna is in fear of what she's written about her friends. Ugly things that she didn't really mean. Her friends are a wide cast of diverse kids (like in real life *shocked face*) including a hacker, a tough girl, a quiet girl, a popular kid, and a sweet guy. Most of them have different backgrounds other than just white which I appreciated. Almost all of them, including Anna, have secrets that they don't want to come out.

I really enjoyed Antisocial for its mystery, diversity, plot, and characters. All of it felt very possible to me. It was a very real story. On the other hand, I also felt there was a lot of generational talk that I didn't particularly care for but when everything came together - I was happy to have read this. There could have been a little more to make this truly amazing since I felt towards the end things began to get weird and sideways. Unexpectedly, I did feel profoundly unhappy reading the last few chapters. Antisocial shows us how mean and cruel we can be. That we are people who carry secrets and lies but we also make mistakes. Despite everything, people aren't just their secrets and mistakes. There is so much more of us than what we or others portray us to be.

Anna has serious anxiety, which is not helped by the fact that she is trying to find her place at school now that her popular boyfriend has dumped her. Her former friends, who she dumped once she started dating Palmer seem unsure of whether or not they want to let her in, as they were hurt by her abandoning them. Add to that a hacker who is tapping into everyone's phones and exposing everyone's dirty secrets for the entire school to see. Anna is not dealing well with the fallout, and she is afraid that her own secrets will come to light.

Fascinating read.

Marketed as <i>Pretty Little Liars</i> meets Wikileaks, I was intrigued by this book almost immediately. Antisocial follows Anna Soler, a student at Alexander Prep Academy. Anna was recently dumped by her jock boyfriend and is finding that her senior year is less than ideal. When someone starts hacking the school's scheduling app (and getting access to everyone's online records) and broadcasts the secrets, Anna isn't the only one having a rough senior spring.

The writing is solid and gripping. I flew through this one, thinking about it whenever I wasn't reading it. This book also handled representation fairly well. Anna is Colombian and has a social anxiety disorder. While both of these things informed her character (particularly SAD), they did not define her.

However, on that same vein, I had a particular problem with the last 20% of the novel. <spoiler>Palmer's death seemed to be nothing more than a brief plot point to help end the leaks and bring the school back together. It came way too late in the novel, seemed perhaps slightly out of character for Palmer (though we don't get much of a look into his mind or see that he's struggling—maybe that's the point), and none of the characters seemed to really respond to his death. Anna seems to fall into a depression, but quickly pulls herself out of it for the good of the school. I wanted to see Palmer's death get more resolution.</spoiler> I was also disappointed that we didn't see more resolution of Jethro's storyline. He was so important for the first half of the book, but then seemed to completely fade away, despite his significance to the plot.

Overall, I recommend this book. A quick, dramatic read, with a gripping plot and PLL-worthy characters and drama.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Just the comparison to Pretty Little Liars is a soft spot for me. It’s like candy. And I find it pretty hard to resist when it’s ripe for the picking. I grew up on PLL, Private, The Lying Game, Gossip Girl, all that good stuff. My all time favorites usually involved mystery in that glamorous world with plenty of secrets. And by glamorous world, I mean wealthy parents and private schools (or elite boarding schools) so it’s a very different lifestyle than I grew up with. These types of books are addicting. Luckily for us, this one is entertaining. It will fulfill your need for a YA contemporary mystery a la PLL.
The basic gist of the story is the students at a prep school being taken down by a hacker. The hacker hacks their phones, finds out all their dirty deepest secrets, and leaks them. Our protagonist Anna has social anxiety and she is determined to find out who is leaking the hacked information.
The book is a fairly quick read. It is not only fast-paced, but only 256 pages. You’ll be hooked trying to figure out who the hacker is. There are high school stereotypes likes you’d find in Mean Girls. The story borders on satire. It is fascinating to get a look at what can happen in the modern age where everything is hackable. We put everything out there without even realizing it. #Antisocial is an excellent book for today’s young adults to read. It is not only enjoyable, but has a great message it sends while not feeling preachy.

As I read this book, I kept thinking that this stuff could really happen. Perhaps it's because I teach high school kids and see, far too often, the dangerous effects of social media. But the troubles unleashed in Antisocial feel very real.

Jillian Blake sets her story in the tony area of Alexandria, Virginia, which happens to be my hometown. Blake has a sharp perception of the people who live in that area: government workers, people affiliated with the government, or those attempting to influence it. To some degree, the setting reflects the characters. The students at Alexandria Prep have their own governmental-esque hierarchy, and those who wish to influence it take control of the whole thing.

It begins with a somewhat innocuous list of all of the Internet searches performed by students at the school. No identifying names, just the search terms. It doesn't take long to figure out who searched for what, which of course is the goal. A public shaming of sorts.

This fairly tame hacking leads to something far more severe, however, as friends turn against each other, Anna, our narrator, is a senior at the school and is trying to climb back into her own clique, something she abandoned when she began dating the school's popular star basketball player. With that relationship over, Anna has to rebuild relationships she let dissolve, all while a mysterious hacker (or hackers) attempt to thwart everything between everyone.

What adds to the sense of urgency and stress is Anna having to manage her anxiety disorder. She feels everything to an extreme, which can make her believe facts that are not in evidence. Yet she's a girl who wants a second chance, even as she isn't quite sure what she needs to do to prove herself. It makes her relatable and empathetic.

This isn't to say that Anna won't frustrate you. The way she tries to handle conflicting feelings will make you roll your eyes, wishing you could shout at her to just stop being stupid. But she's an eighteen-year-old girl, something Jillian Blake never lets you forget. Anna doesn't know herself yet. She has a lot of growing up to do, and part of that process is learning to manage how she reacts to disappointments and sadnesses.

The hacking at the center of this book should terrify teens and their parents. It also should serve as a cautionary tale: think about what you want everyone to know because when you text someone or when you post something on social media, you have to assume that privacy rules do not exist. We all understand the need to vent. But when your venting is in writing - when it's something that can be shared - you have to assume that others will see it.

Blake takes this tale in an overwrought direction, adding a tragedy that feels almost soap operatic in nature. It isn't needed. The damages inflicted by this hacking are powerful enough. The resolution might make you roll your eyes a little bit, but the message should not be lost when Anna identifies the most used word in all of the texts and postings. It is, indeed, the most powerful word of all.

Scheduled for publication on the blog on May 20.

Social media, privacy, online security, then add to the mix anxiety, self-perception, friendships, and the blurry lines in between, #Antisocial is about being social, just not quite exactly in the way we were once upon a time used to.

Anna Soler’s senior year didn’t progress as smoothly as she had wanted to. Waiting for college admissions with no boyfriend and ‘Insta’ frenemies to rely on, she has to face the inevitable — making amends with the friends she have been ignoring for months. Managing anxiety, dealing with a break-up and struggling to repair her friendships, Anna finds herself lost. She can’t escape the question nested in her mind — is she who she thinks she is or is she the person the others see her as? Once a series of phone hacks start to shake the school grounds, the question crawls into the teenage minds of her peers as well. Everyone becomes torn between who they think they are and who their friends are.

The novel offers an unique view on anxiety and mental health in the backdrop of constant scrolling, feed updating, desire for validation and short attention span. High school is tough, some thrive and some have to survive. #Antisocial explores how hard it can get when one’s darkest secrets are exposed for the world to see. There’s no place to hide, privacy is luxury from the past. If gossip and false accusations are intolerable, having a hard proof of what one has done or hasn’t, brings it to another level.

Growing up in the era of this tech chaos must be overwhelming and it’s not something you can prepare for. Parents battle with defining and clarifying the boundaries they enforce, schools fail to sustain their own policies. Alexandria Prep High School has banned the use of mobile devices in the school’s premises, yet they’ve encouraged the use of their newly released scheduling app. Controversial, not? I’ve been born amid the relatively early blossom of the Internet and my adolescent years had only experienced the beginning of the heavy social media use. Honestly, I’ve got no idea how today’s kids do it twenty-four-seven without losing their sanity.

The plot develops in a good pace, the characters act their age and you won’t find extra fluff that doesn’t need to be there. Unfortunately, I felt that the ending was a bit unsatisfying. A key storyline was not fully resolved and another plot device had to be used in order to serve as half a ‘cautionary tale’, half a catalyst.

#Antisocial is enjoyable and funny, very in touch with pop culture and easily connects with the reader. Whether you’re in high school, finding yourself in university or well, ‘a grown-up’, it has a message that deserves to be sent across.

I have kindly received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and Random House Children’s Delacorte Press in exchange of a fair review.

This was a nice read intense and full of drama.The storyline was very good developed.