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TodaysGirls.com #6
Chat Freak
Fourteen-year-old Morgan alienates her friends and family when she spends all of her time online talking to strangers in various chat groups.
140 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
About the author
Kristi Holl
66 books16 followersKristi Holl is a best-selling award-winning author of dozens of middle-grade novels. With additional background as an elementary school educator and instructor of writing for children, Kristi's books are on many recommended reading lists and have been nominated for numerous Children's Choice Awards. Kristi has three grown daughters and lives in Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 9, 2017
The antiquated technology featured in this book feels quaint compared to the high-speed connections and social networks we have today!
Still, the book makes a good point: The Internet is like Wizards of Waverly Place: Everything is not what it seems.
Still, the book makes a good point: The Internet is like Wizards of Waverly Place: Everything is not what it seems.
September 1, 2026
Chat Freak (Updated)
Morgan gets ready for the nightly TodaysGirls.Com chat. Maya lectures her about her weight and puts down her seal project. Morgan rushes through the chat so she can spend some time online privately. When a boy Maya’s dating calls (Daryl) she tells him she can’t come to the phone, so her sister won’t tie up the line. She then gets on a site called GlobalBuddies.
Morgan starts to help strangers online and loses track of time. Because Morgan doesn’t tell Maya Daryl called, she thinks he didn’t call her. Morgan feels guilty, but continues to chat late into the night. The next day, at swim practice she’s exhausted and performs poorly.
Morgan, Jared, and Ty have an assignment for biology that they’ve named “Save the Seals.” Morgan has an idea that they can gather global stories using GlobalBuddies. They can also put their money together and adopt a seal. At school, Maya confronts Darnyl about not calling her. He’s confused and says he did. She storms off and doesn’t want to hear it. Morgan knows she’s the reason for the fight.
The swim meet doesn’t go well. Morgan is pulled from the race because of her fatigue. Edgewood loses the meet by five points. Maya jumps on Morgan’s case. Morgan gets upset and cries in the locker room. At home, Morgan overhears her parents discussing possibly opening a second restaurant in NY. Morgan worries that they’ll move back to NY. So, she gets on GlobalBuddies. She meets a girl named Anna who who vents to her about her mother thinking she has an eating disorder. She doesn’t think she does.
Morgan gets a shock when Anna’s mother emails her and tells her that she’s made things worse. She says that she and her father were trying to help Anna with her eating disorder by trying to get her to see a counselor. This makes Morgan feel even worse. She writes a message of apology to Anna’s mother and tells Anna she thinks she should listen to her mother.
Morgan also meets “Last Wish” (a boy with cancer). He tells her about his illness and how he doesn’t want to leave his mother alone (and not taken care of). Morgan becomes extremely invested in Last Wish’s story and wishes there was something she could do to help him and his mother.
Morgan and her family were supposed to go on a trip to NY, and she was looking forward to it. Only, the lady who was supposed to run the Gnost Pitt gets injured. Maya gets to go later, but Morgan has to stay behind and run the restaurant. This makes Morgan feel overshadowed yet again by Maya. Morgan is distracted at work because she keeps trying to check her messages. Morgan has been trying to help Anna by telling her things to do with her mom, but her situation isn’t improving. It’s in fact getting worse.
She also starts to collect money for “Last Wish” at the Gnosh. Despite her Coach and friends telling her that this person might be running a scam. Morgan’s other responsibilities start to slip. She forgets to do her part in the Save the Seals project and turn in her part of the money,
At the end of the book, Morgan realizes she didn’t lock up the Gnosh and goes back. Only to discover someone’s broken in and is attempting to steal the money she’s collected for Last Wish. Only “Last Wish” turns out to be her friend Jared. Morgan realizes she has to balance online life with real responsibilies.
My Thoughts
Again, I wasn't too crazy about Maya in this one and I sympathized with Morgan. I was thinking do they have dial-up. Cause if they do (shaking my head). I couldn't even imagine that in 2015. When was this book written? Do people even still *have* dial-up? The Crosses need to seriously update their ISP. The scam artist/classmate hit home because I remember once someone *tried* to run a similar scam on me on My Space-only I was way too smart for that. Even though I applauded Morgan for wanting to help everyone and solve all their problems you can NOT trust people on the Internet. You just can't. Not all. But MOST. And the twist of the classmate being the scam artist surprised me. Even though I did see the robbing part coming because she was being so careless. I can't really say much about the addiction part because the truth is I'm probably just as much as an addict as Morgan. And YES it can be a HUGE distraction. But in a way, I felt sorry for Morgan because she has friends and feels closer to people online. So what is that saying about the Today's girls?
Rating: 8. This one was good! Do you ever really though get over an Internet addiction? This book seems to be warning against the dangers of it. Well in specific getting to close to people on the Internet and this is something I haven't always been so cautious about in the past as well as a concern for a once younger cousin of mine that seemed to like to go on sites and chat up older guys and she herself was underage -knowingly-. So the lesson is just be on your guard at ALL times!!!
Morgan gets ready for the nightly TodaysGirls.Com chat. Maya lectures her about her weight and puts down her seal project. Morgan rushes through the chat so she can spend some time online privately. When a boy Maya’s dating calls (Daryl) she tells him she can’t come to the phone, so her sister won’t tie up the line. She then gets on a site called GlobalBuddies.
Morgan starts to help strangers online and loses track of time. Because Morgan doesn’t tell Maya Daryl called, she thinks he didn’t call her. Morgan feels guilty, but continues to chat late into the night. The next day, at swim practice she’s exhausted and performs poorly.
Morgan, Jared, and Ty have an assignment for biology that they’ve named “Save the Seals.” Morgan has an idea that they can gather global stories using GlobalBuddies. They can also put their money together and adopt a seal. At school, Maya confronts Darnyl about not calling her. He’s confused and says he did. She storms off and doesn’t want to hear it. Morgan knows she’s the reason for the fight.
The swim meet doesn’t go well. Morgan is pulled from the race because of her fatigue. Edgewood loses the meet by five points. Maya jumps on Morgan’s case. Morgan gets upset and cries in the locker room. At home, Morgan overhears her parents discussing possibly opening a second restaurant in NY. Morgan worries that they’ll move back to NY. So, she gets on GlobalBuddies. She meets a girl named Anna who who vents to her about her mother thinking she has an eating disorder. She doesn’t think she does.
Morgan gets a shock when Anna’s mother emails her and tells her that she’s made things worse. She says that she and her father were trying to help Anna with her eating disorder by trying to get her to see a counselor. This makes Morgan feel even worse. She writes a message of apology to Anna’s mother and tells Anna she thinks she should listen to her mother.
Morgan also meets “Last Wish” (a boy with cancer). He tells her about his illness and how he doesn’t want to leave his mother alone (and not taken care of). Morgan becomes extremely invested in Last Wish’s story and wishes there was something she could do to help him and his mother.
Morgan and her family were supposed to go on a trip to NY, and she was looking forward to it. Only, the lady who was supposed to run the Gnost Pitt gets injured. Maya gets to go later, but Morgan has to stay behind and run the restaurant. This makes Morgan feel overshadowed yet again by Maya. Morgan is distracted at work because she keeps trying to check her messages. Morgan has been trying to help Anna by telling her things to do with her mom, but her situation isn’t improving. It’s in fact getting worse.
She also starts to collect money for “Last Wish” at the Gnosh. Despite her Coach and friends telling her that this person might be running a scam. Morgan’s other responsibilities start to slip. She forgets to do her part in the Save the Seals project and turn in her part of the money,
At the end of the book, Morgan realizes she didn’t lock up the Gnosh and goes back. Only to discover someone’s broken in and is attempting to steal the money she’s collected for Last Wish. Only “Last Wish” turns out to be her friend Jared. Morgan realizes she has to balance online life with real responsibilies.
My Thoughts
Again, I wasn't too crazy about Maya in this one and I sympathized with Morgan. I was thinking do they have dial-up. Cause if they do (shaking my head). I couldn't even imagine that in 2015. When was this book written? Do people even still *have* dial-up? The Crosses need to seriously update their ISP. The scam artist/classmate hit home because I remember once someone *tried* to run a similar scam on me on My Space-only I was way too smart for that. Even though I applauded Morgan for wanting to help everyone and solve all their problems you can NOT trust people on the Internet. You just can't. Not all. But MOST. And the twist of the classmate being the scam artist surprised me. Even though I did see the robbing part coming because she was being so careless. I can't really say much about the addiction part because the truth is I'm probably just as much as an addict as Morgan. And YES it can be a HUGE distraction. But in a way, I felt sorry for Morgan because she has friends and feels closer to people online. So what is that saying about the Today's girls?
Rating: 8. This one was good! Do you ever really though get over an Internet addiction? This book seems to be warning against the dangers of it. Well in specific getting to close to people on the Internet and this is something I haven't always been so cautious about in the past as well as a concern for a once younger cousin of mine that seemed to like to go on sites and chat up older guys and she herself was underage -knowingly-. So the lesson is just be on your guard at ALL times!!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews