Random by Tom Leveen (review)

The night before Tori goes to court to face charges that she and her friends cyberbullied Kevin, a former friend, to the point where he committed suicide, she receives a phone call. The caller claims that he dialed her number at random, as a sort of test to see if there was a God who cared about whether he lived or died: if he got an answer, he might not follow through on his plan to take his own life. Torri talks to him through the night, listening to his story while he pushes her to remember and share hers, even though she is suspicious of his authenticity and angry with him for blackmailing her with the continual threat that if she hangs up, he will die. As the night progresses, she comes to terms with the dubious choices she made to get in with the popular group, realizing that while she may not have handed Kevin the scarf he used to hang himself, she didn’t stop others from harassing him. The texts and Facebook posts that drove Kevin over the edge are included, giving readers the opportunity to pass their own judgment on Tori and her friends, as well as to see how quickly things can escalate when there is no accountability. While the topic is timely and the exploration of culpability is clear (and no doubt instructive for actual or would-be bullies), it’s overall contrived and messagey, especially when it turns out that her suspicions that the call was a set-up were well founded. The ruse came from an unexpected quarter, however, motivated by tough love rather than revenge; the book therefore deviates from the formula for books on this topic by allowing Tori’s friends’ trick to deliver the positive side of the intervention lesson as well as the negative one.