Book Review: Going Underground by Susan Vaught

Going Underground
Author: Susan Vaught
Reading Level: YA
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Published: September 13th 2011
Review Source: Bloomsbury USA
Available: Amazon

Summary: (from goodreads) Del is a good kid who's been caught in horrible circumstances. At seventeen, he's trying to put his life together after an incident in his past that made him a social outcast-and a felon. As a result, he can't get into college; the only job he can find is digging graves; and when he finally meets a girl he might fall in love with, there's a sea of complications that threatens to bring the world crashing down around him again. But what has Del done? In flashbacks to Del's fourteenth year, we slowly learn the truth: his girlfriend texted him a revealing photo of herself, a teacher confiscated his phone, and soon the police were involved.

Basing her story on real-life cases of teens in trouble with the law for texting explicit photos, Susan Vaught has created a moving portrait of an immensely likable character caught in a highly controversial legal scenario.

This is a book that parents HAVE to read. If you have kids, especially teenagers, then you must read this. I have to say that this really made me think about our legal system. Things are not always black and white and when it comes to sex offenders we often think of sick perverted people (adults) that do horrible things to someone else. Well, this was not the case in this book.

Del had a normal life. He was 14 years old and into sports and top of this class. He played baseball and had a sweet girlfriend named Corey, who was 13 years old, but only a few weeks from turning 13. But after a sexting incident that landed him in juvenile detention and a sex offender record, his whole world came tumbling down. Now 17 and about to graduate high school, Del doesn’t know what to do. Colleges keep denying him because of this past. The only job he can get is at a local cemetery digging graves. Then one day while digging, he sees Livia and he is instantly infatuated by her. Livia is a sweet smart girl who also falls for Del, but the only problem is that she doesn’t know about his past.

Going Underground was a great book that opened my eyes to an issue that no one really talks about - sexting. This was a horrible thing that happened to Del and what makes it worse is that this is something that teenagers are doing all the time and don’t even know the legal ramifications for it. I recommend that ALL parents with teenagers and teenagers too read this book and do some research on this issue. Because this is something that is happening every day.