Scholastic Inc
June 24, 2014
224 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depo/or Amazon
It's the return of Point Horror for the Internet generation! Don't open the door. Don't answer your phone. And whatever you do, DON'T turn on your computer. . . .
Cole and Gavin love playing practical jokes through Wikipedia. They edit key articles and watch their classmates crash and burn giving oral reports on historical figures like Genghis Khan, the first female astronaut on Jupiter. So after the star soccer player steals Cole's girlfriend, the boys take their revenge by creating a Wikipedia page for him, an entry full of outlandish information including details about his bizarre death on the soccer field.
It's all in good fun, until the soccer player is killed in a freak accident . . . just as Cole and Gavin predicted. The uneasy boys vow to leave Wikipedia alone but someone continues to edit articles about classmates dying in gruesome ways . . . and those entries start to come true as well.
To his horror, Cole soon discovers that someone has created a Wikipedia page for him, and included a date of death. He has one week to figure out who's behind the murders, or else he's set to meet a pretty grisly end.
Wickedpedia is a fun and suspenseful tale. Cole Redeker, in the running for valedictorian, needs to focus on school if he wants that top honor but his mind seems only to be on Winnie, His ex-girlfriend who is now dating Cole's former friend, school soccer captain and the one she dumped Cole for: Josh.
Cole is determined to make Winnie see the error of her ways; for her to see that Josh isn't good enough for her and come back to Cole. His best friend, Gavin, though thinks Cole needs to move on and forget all about 'Whinny.' More focused on having fun and pulling pranks than school work, Gavin is always trying ot get Cole to take part.
When the opportunity to combine Gavin's love of pranks and Cole's distaste for Josh presents itself, the boys can't help but seize it. Until their fun seems to foreshadow classmates' deaths.
Now Cole has to figure out who the killer is - and what part his prank played - if he wants to save his friends and himself.
The main characters are all seniors in high school, but feel much younger. The age makes sense as they are stressing over college applications and GPAs which all plays into the plot. Their actions and dialogue, however, do make them seem several years younger. Despite what the characters are experiencing in their lives (end of high school), it seems they would be more identifiable to older middle school, junior high students.
The book itself may be best for that age as well. While some of the happenings do, possibly, bring it more to a YA level, the characters, their behavior and the story felt more upper-MG. Albeit a bloody, murder-filled upper-MG.
Certain parts of the book are predictable, but still quite fun. The very end of the book was my least favorite part, but I liked how the pieces of the puzzle came together. Wickedpedia is not a book to read if you want a complicated murder mystery or a character focused tale. t is one to read, however, if you're looking for a quick, suspenseful and fun horror tale with an intriguing premise.
thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my copy to review
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