"The Popularity Code" by Stephanie Faris Book Review

Hey everyone 👋🏾Today I will be reviewing the book, "The Popularity Code" by Stephanie Faris.

Summary

Faith Taylor is popular by affiliation, thanks to her best friends, Adria and Janelle. When a new website called SlamBook targets her school’s popular kids, Faith gets sucked in. And when she discovers a page of her own on the site, she finds herself obsessing over the comments people are posting about her. Some are good, some are…not so good. Faith becomes determined to connect the negative comments to the people leaving them using her coding skills, and begins to strike back by posting negative comments of her own. Soon, Faith finds that people are talking about the comments people are leaving. Even though she does feel guilty, it’s just so easy to be cruel behind the anonymity of her laptop. But when the comments on the site go too far, she realizes she must figure out a way to make things right before it’s too late.

Likes

This book reminded me of the movie Mean Girls, but with nicer protagonists. The feeling of thinking you can do anything online because it's anonymous was very relatable and would be a great book to teach students about cyber-bullying. I also liked the message of "two wrongs don't make a right." Faith's coding skills were also an enjoyable side element. They didn't take up a crucial part of the story, but they were still an important part.

Dislikes

I wish that Faith's relationship with her family had been addressed better. She never really fixed the issue of not feeling welcome in her family and that bothered me. I think the author could've added a part where Faith talks about how she feels with her family. Also, I think the author could've done better with Tierra's character and her relationship with Faith.

Overall

This book was very good, with a few minor flaws. I would rate this book a 8.4/10.I recommend it for readers who are interested in middle school realistic fiction.