Cover Image: Accountable

Accountable

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Member Reviews

The book chronicles the discovery and its aftermath of a racist Instagram account at an affluent California high school. Slater examines the story from the angles of the perpetrators, the victims, their families, and school and district personnel.

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Accountable is a fascinating deep dive into an actual event. I was surprised at the length of time included in the research and in the actual writing of the book. High school teachers and students need to read this.

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Wow-what a relevant book especially as we head into what will likely be a volatile election season. There's so many ethical questions and discussion to be had based on this work. Slater is a wonderful non-fiction writer and 57 Bus was also heralded as a book that stops you in your tracks and forces you to have tough conversations about prejudice and hatred.
This work in some ways is even more powerful--because it deals with the consequences of online speech/social media. Something that is literally within our reach daily. But, how far is too far? What is funny? What is hurtful? Is there a line? What consequences from something that seems to have "harmless" origins and what does it mean when it comes to the future? As they say online is forever. Will you dumb gag post ruin your life?
I really think every young person could benefit from reading this powerful book! It's not a shock at all that it seems to be buzzy as the yearend awards are named. I read an advanced copy via NetGalley and immediately ordered the book for my high school library.

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This was a phenomenal read, one that I will be thinking about for a long time. I'm eternally grateful that social media was not a tool available to me as a teenager. This book shares the impact of a racist social media account, both on the students targeted by the account and the creator and followers of the account. I recommend it to teenagers, especially high schoolers, and for anyone who works or lives with young people who are active on social media. Slater's exploration of the fallout from this account is both engrossing and difficult to read. There are so many points at which the adults seemed to fail the teenagers involved, yet I would be hard-pressed to articulate how I'd have handled the situation differently. Of course actions have consequences, but should we be responsible our entire lives for dumb things we do as teenagers? What about the responsibility to people who will be haunted their entire lives by dumb things done to them as teenagers? This book left me with more questions than answers, but I believe in the importance of those questions.

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Complex, nuanced and challenging to read.. Slater is skilled in presenting multiple sides of the story- simultaneously making the reader feel outrage and empathy in one moment, then shattering any simple taking of sides in the next Buying for my HS library, but might be a difficult sell for students to pick up. Will recommend to all educators I come across.

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This accounts the grim reality of the right wing pipeline. Harrowing but real this was a story that needed to be told.

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This YA Nonfiction by the author of The 57 Bus tells the story of an Instagram account that was started by a couple of people at a high school in small town California that contained racist and sexist content. While the creator(s) considered it edgy humor and didn't explicitly set out to hurt anyone, once the existence of the account was revealed to those targeted all hell breaks loose. This book examines things from both sides-those involved in content for or liking the content for the account, and the students impacted by what was posted. How should situations like this be handled when the harm is perpetrated on social media? How can the school punish the wrong doers? How does a community heal from this type of trauma? Is it even possible to come back together after something of this magnitude happens? Slater uncovers every single aspect of this story. The book did seems to revisit the same thoughts/feelings/themes regularly which made it drag a little here and there but overall this was a very good read and a valuable one. I think it gives a lot of insight into how kids are interacting now in ways we didn't when growing up and to those in the target age group for this book, seeing how something considered "harmless" by the account creators could cause so much damage and division-it definitely sends the message "think before you post". It also really makes one consider whether we as a society are becoming to desensitized to weighty topics and how handling them callously can cause harm.

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Wow! Accountable is a raw look at racism in a small community and how it can tear everyone and everything apart. When an extremely racist Instagram account is discovered by some students at Albany High School, all hell breaks loose. Kids that have grown up together are suddenly mad at one another, no one knows who to trust, and no one feels safe. One kid has started an Instagram account for laughs, and it takes a dark turn. Soon, he is putting images of his classmates with horrible captions, drawing nooses around their necks, and making horrible remarks. The (mostly) girls who were targeted don’t feel safe or welcome at school anymore. Eleven other kids followed the account with varying degrees of participation, but soon everyone is lumped into one of 2 categories: the harmers, and the targeted. The school district doesn’t handle things exactly right and ends up contributing the the chaos. Families are fighting, and kids don’t want to go to school. This is a sad look at some of the prevalent racism that is occurring all over the United States today and how it affects everyone involved. With facts, studies, and accounts from the actual witnesses and those affected, this is a very powerful book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.

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Accountable is about how a racist Instagram account affected a school and community. After reading Slater's previous book, The 57 Bus, I had high expectations for Accountable and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT! Accountable has the same artful storytelling coupled with deep research and portrayals of all involved that we saw in The 57 Bus and on another important, divisive topic. This would be an amazing text for book clubs, book groups, or any assignment where students can talk and process what they read. I can't recommend this book enough and how it is a MUST READ for everyone -- teachers, students, community members, parents, social media users, etc. I found it amazing and unique how Slater held back opinion or reflection on the events as much as possible, even humanizing all parties and helping us more deeply understand them. The only thing I yearned for was an update on the school and community at the end like Slater did for the people who were involved.

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I liked the premise of this novel, the synopsis had my attention from the moment I read it. I liked the writing style and the lessons the author was trying to get across. there were moments that went on in the book that were just too wordy, but I wouldn’t say they made me want to DNF or anytging. This will be a great book for teens to read, very valuable lessons for sure!

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I really enjoyed reading The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater and was excited to read another YA nonfiction book that she investigated and wrote. I feel like Accountable is very important reading material for teens and I'm so glad it exists!

Accountable is the story of a raciest "joke" Instagram account made by a high school boy and the effect it had on him, his classmates who were the targets of his posts, and the classmates that followed, liked, and commented on the account. Much of the story is about how the school district failed to adequately address the issue, but Slater also addresses the long-lasting emotional devastation of the girls who were victimized, the personal and social reconning that the followers of the account had to go through, and the complex nature of social media i.e. are the students who only followed the account but never interacted with it as responsible for its devastating effects and it's continuation as followers who liked and commented.

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ACCOUNTABLE by Dashka Slater (The 57 Bus) is subtitled "The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed" and relates events that occurred in 2017 in Albany, California (liberal Bay Area) when a Korean American high school junior posted racist and misogynist memes on Instagram. Even though he initially had only 13 followers, many of the posts dealt with classmates and people they knew, especially Black and biracial girls. The New York Times recently published a lengthy article written by Slater who described, “competing narratives about how exactly the events should be interpreted, with some seeing them as a calamity that occurred despite Albany’s particular virtues (small, liberal, educated, interconnected) and others as a consequence of Albany’s particular shortcomings (too white, too insular, too wealthy, too obsessed with academic achievement).” Clearly, there is MUCH opportunity for teaching, for reflection (e.g., Am I racist? What makes someone racist? Why had no-one said anything earlier?) and for discussion (e.g., Does not taking action imply approval of content? How could the account followers and its subjects attend school together? Do the statistics Slater share correspond to our school? Are these events about race? Gender? Both?) with adolescent students. ACCOUNTABLE received a starred review from Booklist which says in part that this text "should be required reading for any teen before they create, comment, or even like a media post."

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This is a must read for all - especially recommended for social media users- parents and children will find this a good book to discuss racism, bullying, social media use and accountability.
This is a very useful book for professional development in media literacy and should be read by all school staff.
This story is still being reported on and I read the decision on appeal from the Ninth District Court of Appeals- this case may go to the Supreme Court on issues of freedom of speech, hate speech, school violence and bullying.

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Accountable is the true story of a group of high school students involved in a series of racist social media posts. Dashka Slater, author of the award-winning book The 57 Bus, again did her homework when researching the events that are retold in this book. Through interviews, diary entries, and more, Slater urges readers to think about what it means to be held accountable for our actions. I loved that she recounted the events from multiple perspectives - both the perpetrator and the victims as well as school staff and parents. This would make a great literature/ELA pick for high school teachers.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) and NetGalley for a review copy of the book and audiobook.

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This was a good relevant read Andi think it may land better with its target audience of young adults then it did with me. The message was good but the 2nd person love as distracting to me. I'd rather read more about the actual kids and situation than habe the author attempt to turn it back on me the reader.

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Accountable is an excellent nonfiction account of the long-lasting impacts of a racist Instagram account. The book is both horrifying and revelatory. I keep recommending this to parents and students -- this would make for great family discussions. Recommended for 8th grade and up.

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The story of a racist social media account at a high school and its fallout.

This was a really powerful nonfiction read that covers a very important topic. Social media can be a force for both good and bad, which is something I think we as a society are starting to reckon with. I do wish it was 150-200 pages shorter as it felt long and dragged on in places.

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Dashka Slater's <i>The 57 Bus</i> is, to this day, one of my favorite YA nonfiction books. We even teach it at my high school in 10th grade. So I was pumped to read her newest investigative piece about another case that involved teens and made the reader ask important questions.

In Slater's newest book, <i>Accountable</i> she covers the events at a high school over the span of about a year and how those events negatively impact the harmers and the harmed. With the discovery of a racist private Instagram account, the school and community of Albany, California must reckon with the consequences of the content. As with her first book, Slater asks the reader to try to understand the causes of the conflict, questioning not just the motives of individuals, but systemic issues in our country that helped lead those individuals to making those decisions. Slater tackles racism and the way intersectionality makes it worse for some, toxic masculinity, peer pressure, the impact of trauma, the impact of social media, and other issues that explain why something like this was possible. While she doesn't excuse the actions of the harmers, she asks the reader to find fault not simply with the perpetrator, but the ways that teenagers are impacted by the world in which they live.

While this book did ask the reader to do the same kind of thinking that I appreciated in her first book, I didn't love this one as much. By nature of the case she covered, there were a lot of people to track, so the book drags a bit as she has to check in with each of the main players in it. I'd say about halfway through the book, I hit a wall and wanted to put it down for a bit. But overall it was intriguing and thought provoking, and would be a great read for teens, parents, and educators in 2023.

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It is still amazing to me that the person who writes about an adorable french snail is the same person who has penned some of the best teen-centric journalism of the past decade. Much like in "The 57 Bus", Slater gives us all the details of a hate crime in a way that truely breaks down who, what, and why the parties did and reacted the way they did. "Accountable" covers the story of the @Youngcabbage social media account that blew the California city of Albany straight to national news. The account, created by a junior at the high school and followed by other students, depicted racist memes against not just African Americans in general, but specifically targeting other students in the school. Slater is able to show how the social media landscape of the 2000's has created a whole new way for teens to get lost in their actions. While I was fully expecting to be firmly on the side of the victims, I never expected to even see the side of the "harmers", as the followers of the account were coined. The school system really did fail so many of the people involved with this case.

Dashka Slater is truly, in my small, but well read opinion, the Jon Krakauer of young adult journalism. I know she mentioned in the foreword that she did not plan on doing another non fiction title, and that these cases are emotionally draining, but I would (and will) read every one she deems fit to publish.

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When I saw that Dashka Slater was coming out with another hard-hitting narrative nonfiction book for teens, I knew I wanted to read it. I had read her book The 57 Bus back when it came out in 2017 and found it very moving, so this one, which seemed to address similar themes was a no-brainer.

As she mentions in her author's note, the idea for this book came from someone attending a signing event for The 57 Bus, who asked if she had heard of the recent racist social media account at a nearby high school. And so began her research.

In March of 2017, two girls (one Asian and one Black) found an Instagram account on their (white) friend's phone called @yungcavage, created by another one of their friends, Charles. On the account were photos of them as well as other students (and a teacher) of color with racist captions and/or details superimposed over the images. One of the most harrowing was a photo of their Black friend Andrea with a noose shown around her neck. What follows is a vicious whirlwind of ramifications felt by both those who created and followed the account and those who were featured in the images.

Slater is a great storyteller, and the story she tells here is gripping. The effects of this one social media account that was created "as a joke" resulted in feelings of betrayal, loneliness, body dysmorphia, fear of violence, depression, and suicide ideation, from the teens on both sides of the account. As a parent of two littles, I greatly fear what my kids are going to have to deal with through their teen years that will be so radically different from my adolescence, and so much of this stems from social media use. The discussions that could be had in high schools as a result of the event portrayed here could be powerful.

I did think the book was longer than it needed to be (at almost 500 pages) and that Slater didn't really have any concrete conclusions to this story. This was one big, dangerous mess that spiraled out of control, and then eventually, years later, the players all moved on. Were they forever effected? Yes. But as none of them are yet old enough to rent a car, for example, it's hard to say just how this story ends.

Thanks to Netgalley and FSGBYR for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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