Middle school can definitely be a challenge with kids learning more about who they are and defining their place in society. That is really the truth, but it takes the adventures of a group of tweens at Truman Middle school somewhere in the American Midwest to show how troublesome that can really be.

Zebby has hopes of becoming a newspaper correspondent when she grows up, but after she is limited by the faculty advisor of the school newspaper, she decides to team up with her best friend Amr to start and underground one. They opt to do it online and set up https://www.truthabouttruman.com (a real site with supporting information relating to the themes in the book). The goal is to create a place where all the students of the school can participate by posting the real truth about the school. Amr and Zebby promise not to censor anything posted as long as it is true.

Zebby and Amr generally stick to the goals of the site as they write articles about some of the bizarre rules required of students at the school and even an expose about the school lunch program, but the real popularity of the site kicks off after someone going by the toggle "milkandhoney" posts a picture of one of the popular girls from a few years earlier when she was fairly chunky. The girl, Lilly, used to be really good friends with Zebby and Amr before she changed and became one of the "in" crowd.

At first it is a bit of a mystery as to who the picture is of because Lilly has changed to much, but it is just the start of things as milkandhoney has set out with the goal of really punishing Lilly for a past wrong. More and more things are posted by milkandhoney on the site, and even Lilly's friends start to get involved. Eventually, Lilly goes missing, making everyone really consider the horrible consequences of cyberbullying.

The story is presented in a interesting format. The students at Truman Middle School have to write a report for the language arts classes about what happened and their perspective on it, but Zebby and Amr have decided to use the site that caused so much trouble to let the kids really tell the story of what happened. They have taken what the kids have handed into the site to weave together the site.

Each of the characters gets a chance to have their voice heard including:
*Popular girls Hayley and Brianna,
*Lilly herself
*Amr and Zebby
*Lilly's boyfriend and football star Reece
*Trevor and Sara, two kids on the outskirts of the accepted student body
*and even milkandhoney gets represented through some anonymous posts after saying that s/he is one of the students, but doesn't want to state who.

What I thought was really great about the book is that Butler has really captured the voices of the age group. All of the kids are insecure and what has happened is, in part, a reaction of that as social Darwinism has taking over. Each student reacts in order to jockey for a better social position, and in the process of the events learn (hopefully) learn how to better treat those around them and act responsibly.

This story could definitely have been heavy handed with the message, but that does not happen. Milkandhoney is not portrayed as evil, but as just one of the students who took certain actions in order to feel better about themselves and to avenge something Lilly had done in the past. Ironically, milkandhoney is surprised that achieving the goal was not necessarily as rewarding as expected.

Many adults like to pretend that bullying and this side of our kids does not happen. While it is totally wrong, I think it is part of the learning process of the age group. The adults in the story play minor roles, but I think that is realistic as many of the adults don't realize that things often get to this level of hostility. In some ways, I don't think we want to see that it can happen. When it does, we seem totally shocked, but it is really our ignorance.

This would make a great discussion book for both young and old. As Zebby says in the end, the truth is that school can really stink.