(29) YA Contemporary: SLAM

TITLE: SLAM
GENRE: YA Contemporary

A forbidden Slam Book forces Kortney Watkins to see that while she is invisible to everyone who “matters,” she is just as much of a bully on her own. Will she do what’s necessary to become popular and lose the friends she already has, or embrace the person she knows she should be?

It all began in the hallway of Pepperdine High, during the fourth week of my sophomore year. School was tromping along, as it does, and I'd just switched textbooks in my full-to-capacity locker when Madison was suddenly standing way in my personal space.

"It's a Slam Book," my cousin whispered as she snuck a yellow notebook to me in-between English and Spanish (which is confusing, having those two back to back, because how am I supposed to remember one language while trying to learn the other? I mean, I know English is my "native tongue," but still...).

"A what?" It looked like a plain old notebook to me, nothing like my leopard skin or (fake) jewel-encrusted ones. No name on the cover, and the cardboard was wrinkled and wavy, like it had either been dropped in a bathtub or pawed through by the entire class. Which, it turns out, it had been. Pawed through, I mean, not dumped in water.

"It's something Andi's mom did when she was in school, like fifty years ago. She said it was all 'the bomb'."

Andi herself was more than scary. She had a constant crowd around her, but I'd never felt like braving her bossiness to be a part of her popularity-ness. Just thinking about her made me shudder, and let’s not even talk about her mom.

Madison was still going on. "Everybody in our grade is in it, a different name at the top of each page. You write something about each person, like if you go to my page you write 'awesomest cousin ever,' then go on to the next one."