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Friday, October 1, 2010

Chat Room by Kristin Butcher

 Linda is a lonely ninth grader with one friend: Janice "Beastly", the school bully and least popular girl. When Linda's high school introduces chat rooms to the school website, she is sucked into chatting and is soon addicted to the computer, despite Janice's persistent warnings. In the school chat rooms Linda (aka Roxane on the Internet) meets another anonymous student nicknamed Cyrano; a character from her favorite move. The two quickly get to know each other while chatting online.
When Cyrano finds out who Roxane really is, Linda receives flowers, poems, chocolates and finally a ticket to the school dance, and assumes that Cyrano is her secret admirer and he has invited her to the dance. But when Linda misses her bus and is walking home from school in the pouring rain and a twelfth-grader offers her a ride home, she finds out that this guy is Cyrano. He mentions nothing about liking her or the gifts he sent, so Linda still thinks he likes her.
The night of the dance, Linda finds out that it was not Cyrano ( Marc Solomon in real life) who has been sending her gifts, but the shy, younger and less popular Chad Sharp. That night, the two learn the hard way how the Internet can trick people; or get them into some serious situations. Linda is forced to tell Chad she does not like him, and Chad has to convince Linda that he is her secret admirer.

I can't say I completely enjoyed this novel. I never expected it to be so good when I picked it up in the first place, but I found many things wrong with it.

The first thing I'd like to mention about Chat Room is how unrealistic it was. Sure, lots of people participate in chatting online and find themselves caught up in some serious issues even greater than the ones addressed in the novel, but Kristin Butcher made Linda into a character who hadn't ever really been interested in the computer. Linda had to psyche up just to join a chat room on the school website, where these days basically everybody has Facebook and/or Twitter and doesn't give a second thought to signing up. And I know that if my school website had chat rooms and forums on it, nobody would take part in them because by the time you're twelve and older, it's not cool to visit your school website unless absolutely necessary. I think the story should have been based on something involving more peer-pressure and a more popular social networking website.

Another thing I saw wrong with Chat Room was how it was written. The characters were constantly talking about the dangers of the Internet, blah blah blah. No teenager and/or child wants to read something they already have to sit through their parents telling them. Chat Room was the kind of book your parents tell you to read and hope that you'll obliviously learn something and recommend it to your friends. The characters were phony, and the dialogue was too mature for their ages. I support these two opinions of mine with the following quote: "Chat rooms are nothing but hangouts for perverts. Anybody who visits them is asking for trouble." -Janice (8)

So now after stating and supporting my opinions that Chat Room is unrealistic, too educational to be attractive to the average teen reader, and phony, my final conclusion is that I will not recommend this novel to anybody I know, for I believe it is not by far the best book I have ever read.

To Read  Not to Read


7 comments:

  1. i haven't read this book, and i guess i never will, i liked your point of view, i can relate to your ideas against some books that aren't well written.

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  2. I'm looking for the definition of "persistent" stated in Chapter 7 of Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. Can you help?

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  3. Sure! Persistent means: determined; in the context in HOOT it meant that the kids wouldn't stop until they met their goal. Hope that helps.

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  4. Now, since you were helped, please subscribe to this blog in return. Thank you! :)

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  5. i have read this book recently and (yes i am a teenager) it's true to the fact that this novel was but of unrealistic and doesn't really happens in real life since i,myself obsessed to computer and such things and i have been though them.So,I guess yeah,you'e right in both ways.

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  6. This book was published in 2006, so, yes, it is way out of date now. Apparently it found an audience though, since it has recently gone to reprint (for the umpteenth time), so it is still finding an audience. It has sold well over 25,000 copies. I think, more than the reality of the chat room, it appeals to young people who, for whatever reason, don't fit into the mainstream of high school, and since those are the kids the book is aimed at, I guess it succeeds.

    Thank you for your take on it though. The opinions of young readers help me to better connect with my readers.

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