Therese Fowler’s third novel Exposure blends a Romeo and Juliet inspired love story with a modern day high school drama, complete with Facebook and sexting. The well-written, fast-paced novel tells the story of two high school teenagers, Anthony and Amelia. Both attend an expensive private school in North Carolina. Both are madly in love with each other. Both hide their relationship from friends and especially Amelia’s father, Harlan, a strict, self-made millionaire car dealer, who would flip if he knew his daughter was dating anyone, let alone, Anthony, the son of Spanish teacher and single mother Kim.
Everything is going okay for the pair as they eagerly await graduation from high school and Amelia’s 18th birthday, after which they are free to be together openly, to move to New York together and to study theatre at university. But things soon take a turn for the worse when Amelia and Anthony trade naked pictures of each other via text message. Harlan discovers the photos on her daughter’s laptop, calls the cops, and uses his power and influence to turn local law enforcement, the national media and a zealous prosecutor on Anthony. The plot hinges on Amelia’s age. Because she is 17, Anthony faces child pornography charges and serious jail time from their “sexting”.
The central premise of the novel – that an underaged teen could face child pornography charges for sending photos to their boyfriend or girlfriend – stems from an actual experience of Fowler’s when her then 19-year-old son had been arrested on a misdemeanour charge for emailing nude photos of himself to a 16-year-old female friend. Told from the perspective of all the characters involved, the story is an entertaining read even if the ending is a bit far-fetched. It also serves as a cautionary tale to underaged teens thinking of sending sexually-explicit images of themselves online or by phone.
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