Backlash is told from the perspectives of four teens: Lara; her sister, Sydney; Bree; and her brother, Liam. Lara and Bree used to be best friends. Their families used to do everything together, but as the girls grew older, the families grew apart. The story begins with Lara attempting suicide due to online bullying and Bree gleefully chatting about it online. As the rest of the novel unfolds, the reader begins to understand what led to the bullying and the suicide attempt. Liam and Sydney are collateral damage in all the family drama. They are not the drama queens in their families and are usually left out of the action, but they have to deal with the fallout just like everyone else.Backlash deals with viral bullying and the lives it can shatter. This is an important topic that needs to be discussed in schools, but Backlash is not the best book for schools to use for this purpose. It reads like a typical Lifetime movie or after-school special. The characters and situations are over the top and the messages are hammered home with an anvil.Charla Hollingsworth.

Overweight Lara was bullied and depressed in middle school. Now a sophomore, 30 pounds lighter, her life has turned around. She made the cheer team and has new friends, plus a hot boy from another school is interested in her via Facebook. Her ex-BFF Bree, who ended their friendship two years earlier when Lara's depression got in the way, is now angry after being bumped from the cheer team. When the FB boy suddenly posts devastatingly hurtful things about Lara, it sends her over the edge and into a world where she believes suicide is the only answer. Thoughtfully told from the perspectives of Lara, Bree, and their younger siblings, this is a powerful and credible story that illustrates the perils of immature decisions and explores the wide-reaching ripple effect of destructive actions thought by the perpetrators as "fun." Innocents affected also suffer real anguish, and bullying by association. The depression and bullying are handled realistically without sugarcoating, and fortunately, consequences are applied. An excellent choice for any antibullying campaign, it complements Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why (2007) and Cornered: 14 Stories of Bullying and Defiance (2012).

Fifteen-year-old Lara's cyberbullying-provoked suicide attempt leaves no one unscathed. First-person narration shifts between Lara, her exbest friend, and each girl's eighth-grade sibling as they recount the events that led to the bullying and experience its aftermath. An unusually nuanced look at bullying's effects on whole families, in which all characters are flawed yet none are vilified.

Gr 7 Up-For sophomore Lara Kelly, things are finally looking upshe's feeling more confident after losing weight and she made the varsity cheerleading team, which she never would have imagined two years earlier when she was overweight and severely depressed. Best of all, Lara has caught the attention of a cute guy on Facebook, and he has been hinting at asking her to the homecoming dance. But when she sees horrible comments from her crush on social media, she spirals into a dangerous mental state and suicide seems like the only escape. Bree is Lara's former best friend from middle school, but they drifted apart when Bree couldn't take Lara's depression and self-involvement. The new Lara is suddenly getting everything that Bree is supposed to havethe popularity, and even the spot on the cheer team. Sydney and Liam are the younger siblings, who are caught up in the horror of a tragic event, and trying to figure out how to cope with their siblings' issues while living their own lives. This novel thoughtfully balances the four alternating perspectives, giving an element of humanity even to the perpetrators of severe bullying while maintaining a strong moral judgment. The writing and pace may not be compelling enough for reluctant readers, and there are disturbing scenes portraying bullying and severe depression. However, it's an accessible complement to an anti-bullying curricula that would serve as a good starting point for discussion of ethics with teens. Share with fans of Lane Davis's I Swear (S. &; S. 2012).— Tara Kron , School Library Journal