Life by Committee

Gr 9 Up—Tabitha has hit puberty, gaining new curves, and has gotten a little boy crazy. Her best friends, feeling she has changed too radically, have dropped her cold. Her young parents are sympathetic but also slightly embarrassing, especially her pot-smoking father. Searching for friendship, she stumbles onto an online community called Life by Committee that makes her feel brave and a part of something. LBC members share secrets and are given assignments by the group's leader, tasks they say will help one grow as a person. Tabitha's secret is that she kissed someone else's boyfriend. Her assignment is to kiss him again. The teen starts to wonder if performing these dares, even though they make her feel free-spirited, is any way to live her life. Haydu captures the wild emotions of adolescence: the surging hormones, the power of getting people to pay attention because of your body, and the confusion over how that makes you feel. The narrative includes plenty of current teen concerns: online safety, gay friends, first love and sexual experience, drugs, sibling jealousy, and school achievement pressure—all culminating in a final scene pulled straight from the movies. The message about being your own person and making your own choices can be a bit heavy-handed, but readers who are avidly involved in social media communities will relate to the thrill of confessing secrets to strangers, rather than friends and family.—Geri Diorio, Ridgefield Library, CT