In this op-ed, At The Speed of Lies author Cindy Otis explains what her upcoming novel teaches about misinformation. At the speed of lies will be released by Scholastic on June 6, 2023 and is available for pre-order now.
As Quinn Calvet’s epic junior year begins, everyone at her school is talking about two kids who have been kidnapped near their small town in upstate New York. Her college-obsessed older sister Ava is no exception. Ava joins a new school club called Defend Kids, run by Quinn’s now-reformed middle school tormentor, who is dedicated to finding the missing children. But in my upcoming YA thriller At the speed of liesthis is just the beginning of Quinn’s problems.
Quinn’s luck seems to change when her posts about the missing kids and Defend Kids go instant viral (and she meets a cute guy!). At first, Quinn is thrilled with the mass of new followers and attention her Instagram account is getting, and the idea that what she’s doing could actually help find the kids. After all, attracting attention online can be addictive in real life too. But when Defend Kids warns that a secret group is plotting more kidnappings, their predictions seem to come true when one day two of Quinn’s classmates go missing.
Courtesy of Scholastic
Quinn’s school and town are thrown into chaos as they search for their classmates. Rumours, conspiracies and claims are circulating online and before she knows it, Quinn and her Instagram account are at the center of the action. Quinn must rush to find out what happened to the missing children amidst the chaos before it can happen again. But the truth could be scarier and deadlier than anyone knows.
I wrote At the speed of lies to show the dangerous reach and power of social media to shape, influence and transform lives. Although fiction, it is inspired by very real circumstances that we all experience when chaos ensues on social media following a traumatic or significant event. When something is happening in the world, we naturally turn to the internet for information, updates, or even compassion for others. And like Quinn, we often find that news and facts get jumbled with rumour, lies and conspiracies — and they move faster than we can track.
As Quinn notes in the book, having to comb through fact, rumor, conspiracy theories, and pure fiction just to find the truth can be difficult and frustrating. That’s because social media can behave like the do-it-yourself adventure books that were hugely popular when I was young. They were stories in which you, the reader, could essentially decide which journey you took. You would have a choice in each chapter – for example, when you come to a fork in the road, do you want to go left or right. Then you would be taken to a page number and the story would continue based on your decision and is entirely based on your choice. In the book, Quinn must decide if she really wants to know the truth about what is happening to her small town.