Katie.Com : My Story - Softcover

Katherine Tarbox

3.41

1,008 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452282535 ISBN 13: 9780452282537

Publisher: Plume, 2001

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Katherine Tarbox was thirteen when she met twenty-three-year-old "Mark" in an online chat room. A top student and nationally ranked swimmer attending an elite school in an affluent Connecticut town, Katie was also a lonely and self-conscious eighth-grader who craved the attention her workaholic parents couldn't give her. "Mark" seemed to understand her; he told her she was smart and wonderful. When they set a date to finally meet while Katie was in Texas for a swim competition, she walked into a hotel room and discovered who-and what-her cyber soul mate really was.

In Katie.com, Tarbox, now eighteen, tells her story-an eye-opening tale of one teenager's descent into the seductive world of the Internet. Tarbox's harrowing experience with her online boyfriend would affect her life for years to come and result in her becoming the first "unnamed minor" to test a federal law enacted to protect kids from online sexual predators.

In an age when a new generation is growing up online, Tarbox's memoir is a cautionary tale for the Internet Age.

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Review:

"Our lips met... I felt a few stray whiskers... and suddenly I realized that this was a grown man who was giving me my first real kiss... Something inside me snapped. Now I didn't want this at all. But I couldn't speak." Fourteen-year-old Katherine Tarbox wasn't sure how things had gone so wrong. She had planned to slip away during a school trip to meet 27-year-old Mark, whom she had corresponded with on the Internet for the last six months. Instead, she discovered that "Mark" was actually Frank Kufrovich, a man in his forties with a history of pedophilia. Katie.com is Katherine Tarbox's true story of how Kufrovich used the Internet to manipulate and molest her, and how she fought back by prosecuting him under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 and sharing her experiences so that other teens might avoid a similar situation.

The saddest thing about Katie's memoir are the reasons she sought company on the Internet in the first place. Over and over she states that her mother was a workaholic who had little time for her. She was growing apart from her childhood friends and her oldest sister and confidante was always away at school. Like most teens, Katie was searching for someone or something to connect with--a search her own parents tragically didn't seem to recognize. Articulate, strong and brutally honest, Katie.com should be shared between adults and teens alike, not only as a warning against Internet dangers, but also as a reminder that a computer can never be a replacement for a caring, listening parent. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

About the Author:

Katie.com was nominated for a 2001 Best Books for Young Adults by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Katherine Tarbox was selected to attend Bread Loaf's prestigious teen weekend for young writers and has served as a senatorial page in Washington, D.C.

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