Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown

In the novel, Thousand Words by Jennifer brown, the main character, Ashleigh, is a softmore in high school and has started dating a senior named Kaleb. It is the summer after Kaleb has graduated and Ashleigh is afraid he is going to break up with her or met other girls while he's away at college. While at a pool party, her friends convince her to take a nude picture and send it to him. That way he will have something to remember her by. After them having many fights about Kaleb supposedly cheating, he decides its time for them to move on. Ashleigh is so upset about the break up that her friends feel really bad and decide to get revenge on him. Kaleb thinks that it was Ashleigh who did the pranking so to get back her, he sends the nude picture of her to a kid on his baseball team, who then sent it to everyone in the school. As a result of him sending the picture, Ashleigh gets sentence to community service while he is on trial for possession of child pornography. While the picture is going around Ashleigh loses a lot of respect form people and also loses some of her friends. She feels all alone until she meets a boy named Mack while doing community service. He helps her find a new perspective at life and to own up to her mistakes.


In this novel, the author creates suspense by making the reader anticipate what Ashleigh is going to do next while at the party. In the beginning of the novel, it is in the present time and is talking about Ashleigh's first day at community service. The readers know that she is there for sexting. Although this fact is already given, it is still a suspenseful moment in the next chapter talking about the past when Ashleigh is actually in the process of sending it. All of her friends were telling her that the only way to keep Kaleb was to send the picture. You can tell that Ashleigh is really debating if she should send it or not. In the novel it says, "My head buzzed with the noise and my stomach twisted up in butterflies. I felt wired, like every nerve ending in my body was zapping into place." (25) Although the readers already know she will send it, there is still a moment of the reader hoping she won't. It is a suspenseful moment for both Ashleigh and the reader.

Another example of how the author creates suspense is in the way she describes setting. Mack and Ashleigh have become closer in the past few months and they have began to show each other there places they feel the most secure at. Mack says he owes Ashleigh, since she showed him her most comforting place. He takes her to a place that he used to go to with his dad. In the novel it says, "I aimed the beam at the wall directly across from us and gasped. How had I not noticed before? It was covered from top to bottom with graffiti, some scratched into the stone, some written in bold, black letters, most spray-painted in vivid coors. Words, art, messages, names." (228) In this section, the reader is wondering as to why Mack brought Ashleigh there and what significance it has. Mack is a very secretive character and the reader wants to find out more and more about him and this secure place for Mack is just one more thing to add on.