Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown

Ashleigh's boyfriend, Kaleb, is about to leave for college, and Ashleigh is worried that he'll forget about her while he's away. So at a legendary end-of-summer pool party, Ashleigh's friends suggest she text him a picture of herself -- sans swimsuit -- to take with him. Before she can talk herself out of it, Ashleigh strides off to the bathroom, snaps a photo in the full-length mirror, and hits "send."
But when Kaleb and Ashleigh go through a bad breakup, Kaleb takes revenge by forwarding the text to his baseball team. Soon the photo has gone viral, attracting the attention of the school board, the local police, and the media. As her friends and family try to distance themselves from the scandal, Ashleigh feels completely alone -- until she meets Mack while serving her court-ordered community service. Not only does Mack offer a fresh chance at friendship, but he's the one person in town who received the text of Ashleigh's photo -- and didn't look.

I was skeptical when starting Thousand Words. I loved Brown’s debut novel Hate List (and still do, because that book is freaking amazing), and was worried that Thousand Words wouldn’t live up to my expectations. Though it didn’t end up living up to my expectations, I did still enjoy the novel. I found myself trying to start Thousand Words a multitude of times- so I definitely think that it is the type of book that you have to be in the mood to read. That being said, once I started it, I read it in one sitting. Though I wouldn’t call this Brown’s best title, her fantastic writing style and realistic plot are still prevalent and stand out amongst other YA titles.

Ashleigh, though hard to empathize with, was still a well written character. I felt bad for her, however, I didn’t agree with a lot of her choices. At times she came off as being overly clingy and annoying. However, as the story progresses, she grows into a stronger, more independent character. Kaleb was a huge jerk- but he’s supposed to be. Their relationship is one of the cases where I don’t understand why the two people ever got together in the first place. Though the unlikely pairing annoyed me, it made sense with the actions of both characters.

Thousand Words was small, and I feel like it was too small. The story didn’t really grow as much as I had hoped it would. Though I liked that it dealt with something prevalent in our society- Thousand Words doesn’t strike me as something that I’ll remember. It worked as a good, high quality quick read, however I’m afraid it won’t have the impact that it should have.

FTC- Received from publisher.