Rumors have power.  Their power can give someone the world, or rip their lives apart, and a fancy high school in DC is about to get a lesson no one should have to learn. 

 

The Rumor mill starts off with Bryn.  She used to be the biggest power player in the school, until the car not-so-accident took away her popularity and life as she envisioned it.  But she will do anything to get that life back. 

 

Her best friend Cora is not only the cheer captain, her longtime boyfriend almost died in that car crash.  Plus, with a super genius twin sister, life is not as easy as it should be.  She doesn’t know what she wants but she knows what she doesn’t want, if only she could admit it. 

 

Georgie is the formerly fat next door neighbor to Bryn. She is Punjabi, an immigrant, and newly noticeable on the hotness scale after losing 40 pounds at fat camp.  

 

In this book the reader watches rumors change people, events, and the school.  What is real, and in a world of social media, does it really matter what is real?  All that matters is how things appear.  If it appears that Georgie kissed Bryn’s ex-boyfriend, then she did.  If it appears that Georgie had sexy fun time with Cora’s boyfriend, then she did.  But rumors are like a game of telephone.  They start off one way and take on a life of their own until they cause the fall of everyone.  

 

This was an interesting read. The audiobook is very well done, in each of the three main girls are voiced by different narrators.  The rumor list gets very repetitive when listening in audiobook form, but at the same time, that list is everything.  This book is definitely social thriller, but as an adult looking back on the rumors from my time in high school, I could also classify this as horror.  The things that happen, that no one tries to stop are the stuff that horror stories are made of.  There may not be blood and gore, but the emotional horror can be forever lasting. 

 

Overall I really liked this book but I didn’t love it.  It was very real.  It feels very much like over privileged teen agers let loose in a society where they see themselves as self-sufficient adults, but are really scared little kids looking for help and acceptance.  As a bigger person, the constant harping on Georgie’s weight gets annoying, as does the constant praise of her weight loss.  However, many of her emotions towards this are very real and very understandable.  Cora is so unsure of herself.  And while in a character this annoys me, it is very true to teen age life.  Heck is Cora was surer of herself, maybe this would be a different book.  And Bryn, well the less said the better.  I think teens will see themselves, kids they know, and the school they go to, in these pages.