TITLE SendAUTHOR Patty Blount
PUBLICATION August 1, 2012
READ August 7 - 9, 2012
To keep his secrets, all he has to do is listen to the voice in his head and just walk away...
On his first day at his new high school, Dan stops a bully from beating up a kid half his size. He didn't want to get involved. All he wants out of his senior year is to fly under the radar. But Dan knows what it's like to be terrorized by a bully-he used to be one. Now the whole school thinks he's some kind of hero, except Julie Murphy, the prettiest girl on campus. She looks at him like she knows he has a secret. Like she knows his name isn't really Daniel.
A copy was provided by the publisher as part of the It Only Takes One Click blog tour.
Dan, our fantastic male protagonist, is a shell of a boy. He has been through so much and one bad choice has changed his life drastically. I really wanted to give him a hug throughout. He had come to hate who he was and he was so determined that he needed to suffer at every possible opportunity. Dan becomes a hero of sorts for a boy being bullied at his school, Brandon, and does everything he can to help him through a tough time. The fluidity with which the growth of Dan is written and the fall into darkness that Brandon goes on is amazing. I felt both of the progressions were conveyed in a very realistic way and the events that lead to them well thought out.
There is, of course, a love story here but it takes a back seat and it is also well paced and has its own hint of mystery. Julie was a character that I had a really hard time reading throughout, at times I thought she was a fun, outgoing character but she would turn off at the snap of a finger. All of these elements and the realistic approach Blount takes to an issue that is at the forefront of our society makes this an important story.
There is so much going on in this tale and it all weaves together in an intricate way to make a truly memorable read. Send tackles a tough issue in a touching way and I definitely recommend giving it a read.
The Consequences of Technology
In 2004, my son had a growth spurt. He hit five foot nine, started shaving, endured some vicious acne and all the other curses of puberty and so, became the favorite target of a group of little boys who thought it was great fun to tear down the giant. This torment had gone on for months before I ever learned about it.
I didn’t learn about it until my son told me he no longer wanted to live.
He was in sixth grade. Today, he’s in college and doing well, but I will tell you he bears deep scars from his ordeal.
Let’s skip to 2009: a new executive at my day job directed us to start incorporating social media into our work. I knew nothing about networks like Facebook and Twitter and had a lot of homework to do before I could figure out how to meet his directive. The more work I did, the more grateful I became that none of these networks were around back in 2004.
If they had been, I’m sure I would have lost my son.
Social networks are great tools. They give a voice to anyone with an internet connection, they allow us to remain connected to folks we’d otherwise have lost touch with, and they expose us to news before the networks can report it. Here’s the irony: the things that make social networks so great are also the very things that make them so dangerous. The problem with everyone having a voice is that we can’t readily determine which voices are qualified to support the opinions being stated and which are just hot air. Remaining connected can easily become stalking. And, ‘news’ may be nothing more than rumor. (Bon Jovi did not die in December of 2011.)
I have two more bullet points for the Danger list: First, many of us are more likely to say something snarky online than directly to someone’s face. Psychologist John Suler calls this the Online Disinhibition Effect and what’s really scary is most of us aren’t even aware we’re caught up in it. According to Suler, the internet makes us all anonymous and invisible and because there’s no online authority, exaggerates our own sense of self.
In other words – it’s a power trip and power is pretty much the bully’s objective, isn’t it?
Second, there is the immediacy of it and I want to stress that this is NOT a trap limited only to teens. Adults are just as likely to lose their tempers and take inappropriate action based on anger as teens. This is actually why I chose SEND as the title of my book – because the Send key is RIGHT THERE at the top of the screen, just itching to be clicked before you’ve carefully crafted the message you want to express.
I think it’s important for all of us to remember two things: first, technology is not a toy and second, children are not short adults, which means that is exactly how they’ll treat technology. Social sites, smart phones and the internet have the potential for positive and negative results. I don’t know how children can distinguish the good from the bad without guidance from adults.
How old were your children when you bought them a cell phone? Are they on Facebook or Twitter? Do you know who they’re talking to? Better question – do you know who’s talking to them?
-Patty Blount
