Dazzled by Books

"Watched" by C.J. Lyons is about the dangers of cyberspace. Lyons draws the reader in by creating a heart wrenching seat gripping story of a naive teenager that are forced to confront internet bullying. Jesse Alexander is a sixteen year old boy who is dealing with a hacker that he has nicknamed King. This hacker has stolen videos, writings, and pictures to blackmail his subjects. In Jesse's case he has a fantasy that he wrote taken by the hacker along with a video that was taken by a relative. King uses this information to threatened Jesse. King states that if Jesse doesn't do what King demands than he will expose Jesse all over the internet plus King threatens to harm his mother and sister. Jesse will do anything to protect his mom and sister, Janey. King wants Jesse to perform unspeakable sexual acts.

This story is very hard to read and even though it may be true, I feel like the content may be too mature for young adults. I believe this novel has good information for teenagers to know but it is a very dark book. I feel as if in some ways this book is scary to read. I know that what happens is true and it really happens but at the same time I think you can create the same type of important story without making it super dark. It is important to talk about real issues and to find ways to stop them but I also feel like they shouldn't be so dark either. I would not want my child or siblings to read this until they are way older and I think that pre-teens and teens could benefit from this knowledge.

"Watched" is a pretty decent book to read. I handled it quite alright. I still think it is too dark for young readers to read. I understand theat the world is not all fairies and gumdrops but I don't want to frightened the younger generations to where they won't want to use the internet at all. They should know the dangers of the internet.