Testimony

Three guys. One underage girl. One video.

Location - Exclusive private school.

So what did the headmaster do but to try and keep the sex scandal contained internally. Though with the Internet, can anything of such proportion be kept?

And when the entire thing blew up, it affected more than just the students. In fact, it affected almost every single person in that town. Scandal in a private school equaled huge news. Reporters swarmed the place like moths to light. Worse when the school was portrayed as trying to sweep the whole thing under the carpet. Charges were pressed. Later on it was revealed even the parents who were supposed to be role models have their own skeletons in the closets. And in the end, it weren't just images and credibility that were lost. It was much, much more.

The book is written in such a way that each chapter is an account or a perspective of each of the characters - starting with the headmaster, Mike, discovering the tape - hence the title. Through their eyes, readers are brought into their world, their thoughts, their struggles, their shame. It started slow but picked up toward the epilogue when all hell sorta broke loose, if I may put it that way. And I could not have had imagined the impact and repercussions of the one single action at the start of the book.

In the end, we wonder who should be blamed? The headmaster? The parents? The culture? The upbringing? The Internet? Us, humans, for being wired that way?

Three guys. One underage girl. One video.

Luckily Anita Shreve answered the one question boggling my mind throughout..

Who was holding the camera?

My Rating: