LitPick Review
Anthony Toro certainly meant well when he wrote Web of Deceit. As one of many parents concerned about dangers on the internet, he created a thriller familiar to any American who has read a newspaper: a few bad choices on the internet lead to a young girl being stalked.
Because of her father's job, Annette and her parents moved to a new town. Annette was bored and discontent. She diverted much of this boredom through chat rooms, faking an identity as an abused, divorced mother. Though this facade seemed innocent to her, she soon found herself harangued by a cyber stalker. The harassment escalated quickly, imperiling not only Annette's life but the lives of those around her.
Opinion:
Despite an intriguing concept, the story felt like a series of missteps. Rather than exploring how an internet correspondence develops into a threat, Toro chose to immediately establish the stereotypical dynamic of an obsessive stalker and his furious victim. Though the book states that Annette's stalker initially seemed an honest and likeable gentleman, it would have been far better to actually show him as such before delving into his psychosis. Instead, cliches litter the pages, from Annette's flippant dismissal of her parents' warnings against chat rooms to her fear that the stalker will kill a boy she likes. It's obvious that Toro is trying to make a statement here, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, particularly for an issue as pervasive as cyber- stalking. However, for a message to be effective, it must connect with its audience, and this book did not do that.
