Revenge of the Sluts is about 7 teenage girls who send nudes to their various willing receivers only to suddenly have an email sent to THE ENTIRE STUDENT BODY containing these private pictures.
This book is somewhat painfully realistic about certain things. It's told from the PoV of Eden Jeong, who is not one of the 7 but a reporter for the school paper. She becomes very invested in the story, having sent nudes to her now ex, as well as caring about the girls involved.
The Catholic private school gives the bare minimum of help to the victims.
The school principal threatens to shut down the paper if they publish another article on the story.
The police can't do anything because the girls were all 18 and the state has no laws against revenge porn.
So it's up to Eden, her friends and the self-dubbed Slut Squad to solve the mystery and make sure the story gets told.
It's a good read with likeable characters, as well as ones you're meant to hate. I liked Eden but my favorites were Sloane, the head of the Slut Squad, and Atticus, Sloane's BFF and Eden's romantic interest. I do like that romance always took a backseat to helping the girls. At the end, Eden and Atticus are only just starting to spend time together outside of working on the story.
Sloane is a refreshing character because she owns her sexuality. She's a teen Samantha. She enjoys casual sex and doesn't feel like she should be punished for it. She's upset that she's been put out there to the world because who she chooses to have sex with and show her body to, no matter how many there are, is her business.
The downside to the book is that it is realistic that the girls who sent pictures are the ones looked at as bad while the boys who asked for them, sometimes relentlessly, are never put in the same light. The boys walk away unpunished while the seven girls will have this on them their entire lives, possibly affecting future employment opportunities. There is a horrible double standard in sexuality that we never can seem to get rid of. Boys who like sex are applauded but girls are sluts.
I do wish someone would have thrown a line in there about sending out all the dick pics these poor girls probably get unsolicited. Not that committing the same wrong would make anything right, but there should have been a mention about how women are bombarded with that type of picture.
In the end, the perp is outed (it's not who you might expect), the school admins who failed the girls lose their jobs, and the story is finally told in all its glory. It's not a happy ending but it's probably the closest thing we could realistically get.
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