Thousand Words (Book Review)

Thousand Words
Jennifer Brown

Ashleigh's boyfriend, Kaleb, is about to leave for college, and Ashleigh is worried that he'll forget about her while he's away. So at a legendary end-of-summer pool party, Ashleigh's friends suggest she text him a picture of herself -- sans swimsuit -- to take with him. Before she can talk herself out of it, Ashleigh strides off to the bathroom, snaps a photo in the full-length mirror, and hits "send."

But when Kaleb and Ashleigh go through a bad breakup, Kaleb takes revenge by forwarding the text to his baseball team. Soon the photo has gone viral, attracting the attention of the school board, the local police, and the media. As her friends and family try to distance themselves from the scandal, Ashleigh feels completely alone -- until she meets Mack while serving her court-ordered community service. Not only does Mack offer a fresh chance at friendship, but he's the one person in town who received the text of Ashleigh's photo -- and didn't look.

Acclaimed author Jennifer Brown brings readers a gripping novel about honesty and betrayal, redemption and friendship, attraction and integrity, as Ashleigh finds that while a picture may be worth a thousand words . . . it doesn't always tell the whole story


Review:

When I started Thousand Words I had no idea that it would be such a serious story.
Thousand Words is about a girl who makes a big mistake, and pays for it in so many different ways. But this girl is also the victim. The girls name is Ashleigh. The villain is her (ex)boyfriend Kaleb.

First of all, I think that the author has a thing for common names spelled differently. Ashleigh/Kaleb.

Characters:
Ashleigh made a mistake. And the way she handles it is understandable. Through the bullying of the kids at school, to her best friends betrayal, to her going to community service. All of these things contribute to a much more mature Ashleigh by the end of the book.
Kaleb is another story. WHAT A JERK! Ashleigh made a mistake sure that's true a bad mistake. But Kaleb is what made this entire mess blow up in everyone's faces. (By the way I couldn't stand his character).
And then there is Mack. Mack is a quiet guy at Ashleigh's community service. I really liked his character, although it doesn't come up very often. And in my opinion should have been a bigger part of the story.

Plot:
One of the problems I had with the plot is it moved very quickly, barely stopping for a breath. At the very start there is a bit to much dialog, but after that it moves quickly. The way that things happened seemed realistic.
Other than that, I had some small problems with the plot but not big enough to not read it because of that.

Overall, I liked this one. I would recommend this to you if you enjoyed This Song Will Save Your Life and/or if you enjoy REALLY realistic fiction. If you can't handle a ton of serious things in a story then I would skip this one.
A (3/5) for this one.


Have you read Thousand Words? Do you like books with serious topics?