Margot Mertz Takes It Down

Gr 10 Up–Margot Mertz runs her own cleaning business, but instead of tidying up physical messes, she cleans up her clients’ online presences. She takes care of incriminating posts and covers up questionable content, with all of her profits going towards her depleted college fund and her dream of attending Stanford. While she’s always been successful with her cleanup jobs, when she is asked to single-handedly remove a rapidly growing local revenge porn site, she is unsure of whether she can (or should) handle a job of this magnitude. Though she takes on the job in the name of feminism, Margot eventually learns that she can’t save the world on her own. Margot is a bold and likable narrator; much of her personality is demonstrated in the quippy, pop-culture laden footnotes that accompany her narration. While most of these footnotes bring levity to the story, Margot’s flippant attitude reads as insensitive at times, especially when contrasted with the serious themes of this novel: revenge porn, misogyny, sexual assault, and a suicide attempt.