Linked

Linked is a 2021 novel by Gordon Korman.

Chokecherry seems to be a nice town... if you're white and Christian. The few minority students keep to themselves, with those who live in town recounting rumors of a sordid past and the ones with visiting paleontologist parents wanting to get through the school year.

But then someone paints a swastika at the local middle school. More soon follow, as the adults try to implement tolerance units, an online influencer seeks to spread the drama, and the other students create a project to fight the hate. But one of them painted the swastika. And they're still doing it.

Popular kid Lincoln normally does pranks and plays soccer. But he gets involved after learning about his family's Holocaust story, and inspires other kids to join as well while deciding to do a bar mitzvah.

• Bittersweet Ending: The swastika vandals are caught, but the students are hurt and confused when Link, the one spearheading the chain project, is outed as the first vandal. He gets suspended indefinitely and arrested, having to end his friendship with Pamela out of guilt that he inspired her to unmask about her racism. Link points out that unless he gets lucky, his parents will have to send him to boarding school and hope the world eventually forgets about him being an idiot. But Rabbi Gold agrees to do the bar mitzvah anyway after hearing Link's confession, and Dana helps when snow derails the in-person event. The speech and event show the school that Link is genuinely sorry for what he did, which may at least soften his global reputation. ReelTok also points out that George's dreams of Dino Land are done, but the town council has voted on a new memorial and tolerance museum.
• Crying Wolf: Because of Link's thoughtlessness, his genuine attempts to turn a new leaf are seen as this. Dana first thinks he's playing another prank when asking her for Hebrew lessons. The fact that he painted the first swastika and refused to admit it makes Dana believe that he also lied about his grandmother being a Holocaust survivor, and Link himself admits that he deserved that accusation.
• Deconstruction: This may be one of a standard Gordon Korman comedy:
  • Link pulls pranks and gets away with them because he's charming, the way that Bruno and Boots pull pranks in the Macdonald Hall books. Unlike the Macdonald Hall boys, however, Link has no barometer for when he goes too far. He's embarrassed when meeting Dana's parents after stuffing fertilizer down their office mail slot and they invite him to dinner on learning that Dana's helping him with Hebrew lessons. Dana also initially thought that he was making fun of her when asking for help. Not to mention the swastika vandalism was his fault, and he knows it.
  • More than one story has a Zany Scheme that spirals into a Snowball Lie, as seen with A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag and it's played for comedy. Here, the schemes and lie are Played for Drama: Link painted the first swastika out of anger at his dad, not realizing the implications until confessing would make him look like a racist and anti-Semite. He then keeps quiet as more swastikas appear because no one would believe him that he only painted one, and he's grasped just what a horrible thing he did.
  • The conflict between Link and his father seems to mirror the one that Douglas and his father have in The Twinkie Squad with Douglas having several accomplished siblings and feeling he can't measure up to them. They do come to an understanding, with Douglas's father knowing his son is a ditz, not a delinquent. Link and George Rowland's fights are more serious, with Link bitterly thinking that George cares more about investors and George trying to reign in his son's thoughtless pranks and ego. And while Link decides to try and honor his grandmother's Holocaust past with a bar mitzvah, George wonders if it's another of Link's thoughtless actions because he cites that Jewish children spend months if not years studying that section of the Torah and Link doesn't speak a word of Hebrew.
• Didn't Think This Through: This trope may as well be Link. His father is hard on him because Link tends to act rather than think about how his pranks or day-to-day activities impact others. And the whole swastika controversy started because he was stupid enough to paint one on school grounds without considering the implications. Link himself admits that he had no excuse and may as well have sprayed "I was trying to be a jerk" since he was.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Link initially thinks that George only cares about how the swastikas are making Chokecherry look bad and derailing his Dino Land amusement park project. Mrs. Rowland reveals it's not just that; her mother found out a few years ago that she was a Holocaust survivor, and was the only known survivor of her family. That's why Mrs. Rowland has few relatives on her side, and for George, the swastikas feel personal on his wife's behalf.
  • Jordie already sensed that his relationship with Pamela was over when she insulted Link's bar mitzvah and he mocked her dancing in turn. But he's done with her officially after she's outed as the copycat swastika vandal, and is only sorry that she got caught. Later, his parents forbid Jordie from visiting Link after the latter is outed as the first swastika vandal.
• Forgiveness: Dana has every reason to want Link to stay away from her and her little brother after ReelTok reveals that Link painted the first swastika. She thinks Link has a lot of nerve to show up on her family's doorstep to apologize and explain himself. But she hears him out, and feels like a jerk when he's hurt about her thinking that he lied about his grandmother being a Holocaust survivor. After thinking about it, she agrees to attend his bar mitzvah and makes it a day of proper atonement by helping him do it remotely at the school assembly.
• Gone Horribly Right: The first swastika was revealed to be this; Link when busted admits that he wasn't thinking about the implications of a Nazi symbol. He was angry at his dad for pulling him off the soccer team and wanted to spite him, to make Chokecherry look too embarrassing for George Rowland's Dino Land project. Well, he did that...and in the process revealed an ugly side to Chokecherry with its KKK history, inadvertently put his grandmother's trauma in the spotlight, and inspired a copycat vandal who turns out to be genuinely racist.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Link thinks that his father rags on him too much, and the swastika was done out of spite for George Rowland pulling him off the soccer team for a prank. Turns out said prank was putting lard on the road, and a semi slid on it, crashing into a nearby transformer. George's anger is understandable that Link could have caused someone to get killed and nearly did. His skepticism about Link wanting a bar mitzvah after years of not even showing the bare minimum of interest in church is also understandable given Link's track record of impulsiveness.
  • Also while Dino Land as a concept looks to be commercial-- encouraging investors create make a theme park where real dinosaurs were found and getting wealthy of selling land to resorts that he bought cheap-- George is right that the town would benefit from such a boost in revenue and reputation. He works closely with the Chamber of Commerce and gets upset when the actual paleontological discoveries are overlooked.
  • Deconstructed with ReelTok. He's right that Chokecherry is hiding a sordid past, considering the KKK burned crosses in 1973 to intimidate minority neighbors and Dana finds proof of it at one of her parents' digs. As Dana finds out, however, ReelTok admits that he doesn't care about the actual impact on the marginalized community members like Michael or her parents. It's all about finding a story that will boost his follower count.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • The whole book is this for Link. He gets caught pulling a prank on Dana's parents, and forced to clean it up. Then after people see the swastika, including the few minority students that he didn't hate personally, he sees firsthand the implications of the Holocaust when doing the tolerance sessions and hearing his grandmother's story. Just as he thinks that he's making internal redemption progress with his bar mitzvah and the project, plus Pamela getting arrested as the copycat, ReelTok outs him as the first vandal.
  • Pouncey and Jordie at first think that Link wanting a bar mitzvah is weird and don't quite understand it, with Pouncey joining the paper link project to spite the principal and casually mentioning that his grandfather was head of the town's KKK chapter. And of course, like Link they are coasting on their popularity due to being good-looking athletes that consistently win games. But then Jordie's on-off girlfriend is outed as the copycat vandal, and Link is outed as the first one. Jordie nearly has a breakdown the next day when he reveals to Michael that Pamela didn't understand what she did was wrong, only that she was sorry she got caught. Their egos -- and social standings-- deflate for a bit and Pouncey understands when visiting an apologetic Link.
• OOC Is Serious Business: George is normally pretty hard on Link for his pranks, and Link's mother has to point out that she can't defend her son when they inconvenience others. When Link is outed as the boy who painted the first swastika, he's shocked when his parents don't even bother to read him the riot act despite Link getting suspended indefinitely and arrested. They're actually relieved when Jordie and Pouncey visit him since the Rowlands know that Link's social life and school career are pretty much over.
• Snowball Lie: Technically, Link didn't lie about painting or not painting the swastika. He just never came forward. But as Dana points out when ReelTok outs Link as the painter of the first swastika, he could have come forward immediately and confessed on realizing what a stupid thing he did. Link didn't want to because he knew the other kids would blame him for the weeks of tolerance education, and they wouldn't believe that the other swastikas were a copycat vandal. And by the time the paper chain project started, confessing would have derailed the good intentions and demoralized everyone.
• Thicker Than Water: Despite everything, Link's family hires him a good lawyer and doesn't read him the riot out when ReelTok outs him as the first swastika vandal. He notes that he's lucky that he won't be going to juvie with a plea deal. The Rowlands also need time to think about where they went wrong in raising Link into being so reckless. Link also feels guilty that his grandmother has no hard feelings when he apologizes to her, since he basically made her backstory and future even more complicated.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Happened with Link's grandmother. During World War II in France, she was raised in a convent with other girls. They knew nothing of their parents, and no one came to claim them after the war ended. A Christian family adopted her, and it wasn't until she was in her late seventies that the convent records were found. She and the other girls were Jewish infants surrendered by parents being deported to the camps. Considering the shock and she doesn't even have photographs of her parents, Link's grandmother takes her story going viral well while mentioning that in her day, people talked out things with the family rather than sharing them on social media. Link doesn't react well to the implications that he is Jewish by lineage...and he painted a freaking swastika at his school.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Link already knows that the swastika was bad, but what really makes it register is, after he's outed, suspended, arrested, and disgraced, that Pamela calls him. Not to commiserate about their stupidity as she was the copycat, but to express sympathy, and relief that she's not the only one in this boat. She also thanks him for "awakening" this sleepy town and praises how his grandmother's tragic backstory made him the least suspicious person in town. Link is so horrified that he hangs up on her.