Review by Kay Snell
Orca Book Publishers, February 2024
96 pages, paperback, $10.95 CAD, 9781459837744
Young Adult, Ages 12+ (HiLo)
Contemporary Realism
11:39 AM
With a lurch, the helicopter rises. Blindfolded, I find everything even more strange. My stomach feels like a fish is swimming inside.
I am one of six contestants on Dropped! When I told my mom three weeks ago, she shared it on her social media. In fact, she made me tell her again so she could film me sharing the news. She’s totally addicted. Her whole life is online. Our whole lives are online.
How far would you go for a reality show? What if you had nothing left to lose? After Dex’s life collapses when his ex-girlfriend dumps him publicly on a stream, he receives a once in a lifetime opportunity to escape his real life and star as one of six contestants on Dropped!, an internet reality show. If he can survive five days on a deserted island and come out on top with the most followers, he’ll win $250,000, a trip to Dubai, and status as an influencer. To get his girlfriend and his life back, Dex is willing to flirt with danger and the popular Amina. But he comes to discover that things on social media are not the same as real life, and the life he’s chasing might be better off left alone.
Dropped! is fast-paced and action packed, with each moment pushing Dex to consider what it is he really wants from life. At first, Dex is obsessed with appearances. He lives under the guiding principle that if he can make things look better he can make them be better. If social media would do him a favour and reflect the life he’s always wanted, then maybe he could finally be happy. But he’s slow on the uptake: to make his life look interesting online, he must do more than scroll on his phone. He must live an interesting life.
Enter Amina. She’s the perfect social media influencer. Charming, beautiful and, miraculously, she seems interested in Dex. Like Katniss and Peeta in The Hunger Games, Dex thinks this could be his ticket to more followers. In my opinion, Dex’s relationship with Amina is the most compelling relationship in the book because of its ambiguity. Filtered through Dex’s point of view and his own self-doubt, it’s never entirely clear how Amina really feels. Is she playing Dex? Not to mention, when a dark secret is revealed, everything she does throughout the story is thrown into question. How much of what she says is just part of the social media game?
As for the atmosphere of the island, it’s far from the idyllic paradise of reality game shows like The Bachelor. Kuipers builds a natural world that is unforgiving and raw, contrasting the artificiality of social media. For example, on the first night, Dex sleeps in a cold cave on the ground without so much as a sleeping bag or dinner. The deserted island setting highlights the overbearing role social media plays in Dex’s life. This concentrated focus shines a light on the pressures of creating identity and the anxiety teens have about belonging with their peers.
The prose is plain, but image heavy for imaginative readers to picture the scene and see inside Dex’s head. At times, the “Social Media is the Devil” message might be hammered in too often. Rather than writing off social media altogether, I think greater nuance surrounding the relationships formed through the internet could make this book more compelling. Especially because many of the relationships Dex forms in real life feel just as insincere, if not more so, than the ones he has with his viewers. That being said, Kuipers does a good job at showing the addictive validation that comes from posting online and false reality created on social media.
Overall, this book is an engaging read about the dangers of social media and asks readers to really consider how they want to spend their time. Do you want to watch someone else live their life, or do you want to live your own?
Kay Snell is a UBC Media Studies graduate with a passion for creative writing, puppetry and musical theatre in a way that coincidentally overlaps at times. They’re also a sucker for a happy ending.
YOUNG ADULTING 