10 exciting new YA releases to cozy up with this November
By Lacy Baugher
November 2021 release: Margot Mertz Takes It Down – Carrie McCrossen and Ian McWethy
Described as “Veronica Mars meets Moxie”, this contemporary YA story follows the titular Margot Mertz, a high school junior and internet sleuth whose successful side business helps both students and teachers clean up their online presence of anything that might be deemed scandalous or untoward.
But when she’s asked to take down a website that’s gathering revenge porn photos of girls from her school without their consent, she’ll find herself forced to dig into the dark secrets of many of her classmates, and get close to perfect popular boy Avery Green in order to mine what – if anything – he knows about his fellow A-listers.
Will Margot be able to do what Roosevelt High administration can’t – and keep her fellow students safe?
The official synopsis describes the story in more detail.
"Veronica Mars meets Moxie in this hilarious and biting YA contemporary novel following Margot Mertz, a girl who runs an internet cleanup business and embarks on a quest to take down a revenge-porn site targeting the girls in her school. For the right price, high school junior Margot Mertz will go to the ends of the internet to remove your nip-slip, dick pic, or embarrassing DM. At least that’s what it says on her business card. Margot founded a now notorious company that helps students, teachers, even a local weatherman, discreetly clean up their digital shame. And since her parents lost her college fund, Margot is happy to work for anyone… if they can pay, she can clean. But when a fellow student hires her to take down some leaked nudes, Margot discovers a secret revenge porn site featuring Roosevelt High girls. And hell hath no fury like Margot when she sees girls’ butts shared without their consent. With the help of an unwitting ally, the popular and uncomfortably handsome Avery Green, Margot will gain access to the far flung cliques of Roosevelt High. Anything to find the mastermind (read: asshole) behind the site. But the more she digs, the deeper and darker the case becomes until Margot realizes that some jobs are so dirty, no one can come away clean. Even her. Gross."
Margot Mertz Takes It Down is available on November 9.