Averil Offline by Amy Noelle Parks (review)

Reviewed by: Averil Offline by Amy Noelle Parks Adam McConville Parks, Amy Noelle. Averil Offline. Paulsen/Penguin, 2024 208p Trade ed. ISBN 9780593618646 17. 99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780593618653 10. 99 Reviewed from digital galleys Ad Gr. 5-8 Twelve-year-old Averil is old enough to walk herself to school, sure, but she and her friends are never alone; their parents are always watching via a monitoring app called Ruby Slippers installed on their phones. In the name of safety, Averil's well-intentioned mother regularly invades her daughter's privacy, constantly monitoring Averil's location and communications and even demanding pictures of her meals. Averil's prowess at coding and puzzle-solving catches the attention of her classmate Max, who enlists her help on a bold plan: ditch their phones and sneak away from a coding camp to confront the app's reclusive, eccentric developer about its problematic use. While the puzzle-solving elements à la Mr. Lemoncello's Library make an easy draw for mystery-loving kids, Parks' portrayal of helicopter parenting and smartphone-enabled surveillance will ring true for many tweens. The book is strongest when Averil is slowly unpacking the ways this surveillance has stunted her emotions, unable at first to express anger or anything else for fear of how adults will react, and so desperate for independence she's willing to abandon her phone completely if it means finding freedom. Rather than fully reckoning with End Page 260 this reality, however, the narrative has to brush its complexities aside, flattening the characters to serve the highly contrived plot with an ideal, boundary-setting resolution between Averil and her parents. Nonetheless, Averil is a compelling character grappling with being underestimated as a girl interested in STEM and a child looking to find herself, and this book may provide an outlet for kids processing their need for independence. Copyright © 2024 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois