The Chaos of Now by Erin Jade Lange

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Chaos of Now by Erin Jade Lange Wesley Jacques Lange, Erin Jade The Chaos of Now. Bloomsbury, 2018 [304p] ISBN 978-1-61963-502-9 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys M Gr. 8-12 A year ago, high school sophomore Eli Bennett witnessed a classmate set himself on fire and since then precautionary measures have been set in place by the administration to put a stop to the cyberbullying believed to have led to the act. When a pair of tech-savvy outcasts approach hacker Eli with an idea to win a national cyber-security competition as well as avenge their late classmate, he is intrigued by the challenge. As the idea devolves into an anonymous website targeting the mean girls and boys of their small-town Iowa high school and exposing their secrets, Eli and co. must grapple with the ethical merit of their quickly escalating retaliation plan. At best, the story progresses like a tech bro version of Gossip Girl, especially as other students begin submitting their own scandalous gossip, tips, and videos, including a hacked video of a girl's striptease that quickly crosses a line into revenge porn when posted and undermines any moral high ground the novel has struggled to establish for its frustratingly naïve characters. Juvenile and repetitive conversations between the teenage boys and the few women allowed to chime in—including a clumsily exoticized Mexican-American love interest for Eli—don't work to make the plot any more effective. As more details are discovered about last year's suicide, even more reasons to dislike the boys at the center of this all emerge, and the story loses track of how consequential its big ideas—bullying, youth suicide, ethics in digital spaces, etc.—could have been and ends without any real repercussions for its teenage characters. WJ Copyright © 2018 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois