Katie.com: My Story

Rating:
Summary: Unfortunate choice of title
Review: Katherine Tarbox provides a terrifying look at an important subject matter. It must be said however, that she chose the title "Katie.com" knowing that Katie.com was a website owned and operated by another Katie, Katie Jones. In doing so, she and Penguin books essentially hijacked Katie.com, forcing Ms. Jones to take her personal content off the site, causing her numerous problems. In addition, Katie Tarbox has made her email adress very close to Katie Jones', and has persisted in naming all of her projects Katie.com.
In doing all of this, Katherine Tarbox truly brings the motivation behind her book into question. She claims she wrote it to help people, to prevent other people's lives form being disrupted by internet preditors, but her treatment of KAtie Jones has really made Tarbox look like a preditor. She is using her much greater resources to steal Katie Jones' property. This hurts both Jones, and the readers who write to and visit katie.com looking for help, and find a completely unrelated sight. Tarbox's complete disregard for her readers and Katie Jones make her look like a spoiled brat who is determined to use the katie.com name simply because she wants to regardless of the consequences. It seems unlikely to me that anyone who would behave in such a outrageous, immature, and vicious manner could have written this book for altruistic reasons.
I bought this book expecting it to be good, but after finding out about the true Katherine Tarbox, I couldn't really trust what she said.
It's like the story of Solomon and the two women who claim to be the mother of the same child. Solomon ordered the child cut in half, and true mother chose to instead give the entire baby to the other woman, revealing to Solomon that she was in fact the mother because she cared more about the child than about her possession of him.
Katherine Tarbox cares more about possession than about the important subject matter she has used as a path to fame. If she really wanted to help people, she would change the name of her book and business in the interest of keeping the focus on the book's message. Unless she does, her credibility will always been in question for the thinking reader.

Rating:
Summary: Katie, Thanks for Your Strength
Review: I've been an internet user since I've been a young kid and altho I thought of myself a savy, (...) I almost fell in the same trap that (...) set on the web. Several times. I think the only thing that saved me was reading Katie's book.
She was a great student, but she never felt like she was good enough. Katie goes online and meets Mark, who says he is 23. He makes her feel smart, special,and falls in love. When they meet at a swim team Mark turns out to be Frank, a 41 year old who molests her.
And guess what? That's the least sensational part of this book.
What I thought was so interesting is the reaction of Katie's friends and families. If this had been a TV movie, you'd have seen the whole community of Dorkville, CT, teaming up with the poor kid to help her through the trials. But this is no TV movie - this is real life and Katie lost her friends, got kicked out of the swim team after being humiliated in public, and ended up in counseling.
Thank you, Katie, for your strength to survive and warn the rest of us.


Rating:
Summary: I Can Relate
Review: This is a very touching and inspiring story, and though I don't know Katie personally, I am so proud of her for sharing her story with others. She obviously went through a very rough time and she still decided to "re-live" it by writing this compelling novel. I have also fallen for someone online, but I refuse to meet him until I'm older (I'm only 15). Anyways, by the end of this book, I was in tears, because I can somewhat relate to her low self-esteem and turning to the Internet for help.


Rating:
Summary: Must Read for Kids and Parents
Review: This is an inspirational and extremely well-done book. I was surprised that a teen could write a book that would be so compelling and insightful. In fact, I think that it is fair to say that Ms. Tarbox has more insight into life than most forty year olds. She writes with wonderful clarity in a straightforward manner that doesn't leave you guessing to get her message. The message, in fact, is one that every chatroom visitor should take seriously

Rating:
Summary: This is one to avoid
Review: Although there may be some value in this book as a cautionary tale, I'd advise against buying it for two reasons. First, Katie Tarbox doesn't seem to have learned a vital lesson from her mistake: children are dependent on their parents, and need to trust and obey them. The young readers at whom it seems to be aimed may learn to be careful when they sneak behind their parent's backs, but that's not the right lesson to learn. Second, the publisher, Penguin, deliberately titled the book katie.com, although they knew that was the domain name of a website belonging to a British woman, who used the site to post pictures of her children for relatives to view. After the book was published, she began to get hate mail from pedophiles. Penguin has ``hijacked'' her domain, and is callously exploiting her, in the same fashion that the pervert described in this book tired to exploit the girl who wrote it. Purchasing the book will encourage the publisher to commit more such abuses in the future. Over all, there is little good here, and a great lot that is bad.