Life by Committee

March 10, 2014
Life has gotten weird for 16-year-old Tabitha. Her parents are expecting a baby and fighting about her father’s pot use; her best friend dumped her when a late puberty surge put Tabitha in the “hot” column; and she’s flirting with a guy who has a girlfriend. This is all happening in a small Vermont town where everyone knows everyone, and the whole school has a stake in the opposites-attract relationship between Joe, the jock Tabitha likes, and his girlfriend, an arty, sad-girl type. Then Tabitha discovers the website Life by Committee. Its anonymous members trade in secrets, and their M.O. is escalation: tell a secret, get an assignment, then repeat. Tabitha reveals that she kissed Joe, and her assignment is to do it again. Haydu (OCD Love Story) gets at the push-pull between wanting to keep and to divulge secrets, as well as the way that anatomy can feel like destiny. While the school-wide obsession with Joe’s girlfriend seems overstated, Haydu keeps a multi-strand plot moving, and the climax, a kind of 12-step meeting meets high-school assembly, is cathartic. Ages 14–up. Agent: Victoria Marini, Gelfman Schneider.

April 1, 2014
Sixteen-year-old Tabitha has a secret. She kissed someone else's boyfriend, and she liked it. And with the encouragement of a secret, online committee, she just might do it again. Fans of Haydu's OCD Love Story (2013) will once again bear witness to a female protagonist hurling herself headfirst into a social train wreck of her own creation. Tabitha is an avid reader and gifted student whose burgeoning sexuality resulted in her two best friends' unceremoniously breaking up with her over the summer. It isn't helping either matters or her reputation now that she has a not-so-secret crush on a classmate's boyfriend. The lure of those forbidden feelings proves impossible to resist despite her conscience. When Tabitha discovers Life by Committee, an anonymous online community where members share their secrets and are given "assignments" designed to empower them to live big or go home, it becomes increasingly difficult for Tabitha to discern right from wrong. In this brave new world of social media, the story's premise makes for an intriguing, though at times incredibly uncomfortable, read. The online community comes across as cultlike, and it's hard to watch Tabitha's increasingly costly choices. For readers who can stomach the ride, it's a novel that will leave them thinking. Looking for a book to read and discuss? This is it. (Fiction. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Tabitha has hit puberty, gaining new curves, and has gotten a little boy crazy. Her best friends, feeling she has changed too radically, have dropped her cold. Her young parents are sympathetic but also slightly embarrassing, especially her pot-smoking father. Searching for friendship, she stumbles onto an online community called Life by Committee that makes her feel brave and a part of something. LBC members share secrets and are given assignments by the group's leader, tasks they say will help one grow as a person. Tabitha's secret is that she kissed someone else's boyfriend. Her assignment is to kiss him again. The teen starts to wonder if performing these dares, even though they make her feel free-spirited, is any way to live her life. Haydu captures the wild emotions of adolescence: the surging hormones, the power of getting people to pay attention because of your body, and the confusion over how that makes you feel. The narrative includes plenty of current teen concerns: online safety, gay friends, first love and sexual experience, drugs, sibling jealousy, and school achievement pressure-all culminating in a final scene pulled straight from the movies. The message about being your own person and making your own choices can be a bit heavy-handed, but readers who are avidly involved in social media communities will relate to the thrill of confessing secrets to strangers, rather than friends and family.-Geri Diorio, Ridgefield Library, CT

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2014
Sixteen-year-old Tabitha finds her way to an online community called Life by Committee. On LBC users must share a secret, and then accept an "assignment" in order to "protect your secrets." The quirky cast of secondary characters includes Tab's sharp, opinionated best friend and her ultra-hip, cafi-owning parents. Tab's narrative voice is arresting, even as readers wonder at her poor decisions.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2014
Sixteen-year-old Tabitha is still reeling from a falling-out with her best friends, and she's in love with a boy, Joe, who's already in a relationship. When things with Joe progress to the next level and they kiss, she finds her way -- via handwritten marginalia in a used copy of one of her favorite books, The Secret Garden -- to an online community called Life by Committee. On LBC, users must share a secret, and then accept an "assignment," in order to "protect your secrets." After Tab excitedly accepts her first assignment (to kiss Joe again), she's soon addicted to the website -- the rush she gets from living large and the desperately needed camaraderie. There's much to enjoy in Haydu's (OCD Love Story, rev. 9/13) second novel: a quirky cast of secret-hiding secondary characters including Tab's sharp, opinionated not-yet-out lesbian best friend; Tab's cafe-owning early-thirties parents, ultra-hip while still supportive in the ways they need to be; and the depiction of her small-town-Vermont "crunchy" private school. Tab's narrative voice is arresting, even as readers wonder at her poor decisions and cringe as creepy, cult-y LBC's influence overrides her sense of self -- and her conscience. It feels like a long time coming, but a well-crafted twist ushers the book to a satisfying, uplifting conclusion with a resonant message about secrets -- how much weight we afford them, and how much lighter sharing them can make us feel. katrina hedeen

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)