This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman

 

Jake Bergamont is a good kid.  He is a teenager, attending a private school in New York City where his father works at a university.  He has managed to make friends with a group of guys quickly and his social life depends on what the group decides to do.

One night they go to a party at the home of a younger girl (thirteen to their fifteen) whose parents are out of town.  This girl is from an extremely wealthy family but the parents spend their time traveling and on the social circuit so their daughter is raised by servants and mostly she is unsupervised.  She comes on to Jake at the party but he is not interested.

When he gets home, he finds a text on his phone from the girl.  She has made a nude video of herself performing sexual acts in her bedroom.  Jake is shocked and not sure what to do, while of course, being a teenage boy, somewhat excited.  His own father works long hours and isn't there much to guide Jake and he can't imagine discussing this with his mother  He sends the video to his best friend to ask what to do.

But by the time Jake goes to school Monday, the video has gone viral.  One friend sent to another, then another, then a group, then a website.  Now the girl is known throughout the school and her parents are threatening to sue.  Jake and his best friend are suspended from school, although all these acts happened outside school hours and territory.  Now his family has to decide what their next steps will be.

Helen Schulman is an American author and lives and works in New York.  This book received mention as a Notable Book by the New York Review in 2011.  It does seem a bit dated now as teenagers and even those younger know more about how photographs and movies can go viral and that they need to be careful what they post and send people they consider friends.  The family dynamic is first that Jake needs consequences but as time goes by and the parents start to realize the far-reaching implications and all the effects Jake may suffer, they start to stand behind him by hiring a lawyer and protecting their own child at the expense of the girl.  Parents will emphasize as they have probably been fighting the battle of the Web with their own children and will question how far they would go to protect their own child.  This book is recommended for readers of women's and literary fiction.