Eden is in class when she gets the email. When everyone gets the email. Someone has mailed an email to everyone at the high school an email with naked pictures of 7 different senior girls. The email was signed Eros, and it was sent to every student and staff and faculty member at St. Joe’s. Eden wasn’t one of the girls in the email, but as Executive Editor of the school newspaper, The Warrior Weekly, she knew that it would be a hot story to cover.
At the newspaper meeting later, she and Editor-in-Chief Ronnie talk about the email and the story possibilities. They are able to put names to all the seniors in the photos and made plans to ask them all for interviews. Most of them don’t want to talk to the press, but Eden is able to talk to a couple of them. They are devastated by the betrayal and the embarrassment, and Eden is tasked with writing an article that sticks to the truth but also be sensitive to the pain these women are feeling.
Meanwhile, the girls in the email decide to fight back. They meet together for support and form the Slut Squad, to show those who are trying to bully and shame them that they will not be silenced. While Eden admires them and wants this to be part of the story, she also wants to know what the administrators and local law enforcement are trying to do to help the girls and punish Eros.
After they publish the first story about “Nudegate,” Ronnie and Eden find out exactly what the administrators want to do about what’s happening. They want to cover it up. The principal specifically tells them that they can’t publish any more stories about the email without getting her approval on it first. As for the police, all the seniors in the email were 18, and there are no local or state laws where they are against revenge porn, so law enforcement can’t help.
It’s up to the Slut Squad and the reporters to figure it out, all by themselves. And Eden takes that role seriously. She refuses to let the story die until she writes it all the way to the end.
Revenge of the Sluts looks at important issues of teenagers sending nude photos of themselves, of them having sex, of bullying, cyber bullying, and revenge porn. It also asks bigger questions about the double standard between how men and women are treated as sexual beings (especially in high school), and the repercussions of putting something so personal into the control of another person. The story is interesting, the characters are dynamic, and the questions of fairness and morality, of justice and trust, are blended into the story with craft, so it doesn’t read as a morality play.
I really liked Revenge of the Sluts. I got carried away with the story, but it also gave me a lot to think about. I did feel like there could have been a wider focus, more action from the adults in the story, but when I found out that author Natalie Walton wrote this as an undergrad, just a few years out of high school herself, I understood. She’s a great writer already. The years in front of her will grant her that larger perspective, giving her future work a depth to match her strong style. I look forward to reading her next book.
Egalleys for Revenge of the Sluts were provided by Wattpad Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
