Pinned

by Rebecca Chianese 

When a video of Olivia surfaces on social media, she and her friends realize something sinister has been taking place beneath the glossy veneer of their affluent town.

As Olivia and her friends seek to uncover the truth, parents and school officials try to protect the reputation of their school, causing them to slide deeper into denial and cover up.

Emboldened by the failure of the justice system, the girls seek their own kind of revenge, causing adult friendships to implode, families to shatter, and a community to face its reckoning.

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SPOILER ALERT IF YOU READ THE LAST REVIEW!

What People Are Saying:

“In Pinned, Rebecca Chianese expertly captures the angst, the joys, and the terrors of being a teenager in the modern world. This shimmering novel feels so real you want to search the web to see if it actually happened.”

~ best-selling author, Jessica Anya Blau

"Pinned is simultaneously haunting and prophetic, and dear to me for its honest, riveting depictions of troubled parents and their children. Set in the wealthy suburbs of New York City, Chianese exposes what Americans get up to when they have too much time, money, and all the wrong priorities. At the tender heart of this novel is a community torn apart by sexual violence, secret keeping, and unexamined trauma. Chianese has written a perfect book for our current political crisis. You don’t want to miss it."

~Carley Moore, author of Panpocalypse and The Not Wives

"Pinned is a novel filled with portraits of powerful family dynamics and issues of corruption and the wellsprings of victimization. It surveys the conundrums faced by Emmett Ainsworth and other characters who find their personal values and objectives clashing with forces outside of their control.

Readers will find Pinned’s focus on how predators are born and evolve frighteningly realistic. This is the mark of a well-done plot which pulls readers into the real world of threats, predators, and survival tactics.

These very elements are a huge draw, not just because they emerge within well-crafted, believable characters and situations, but because they provoke much food for thought as the story forges unexpected new territory.

Rebecca Chianese is adept at juxtaposing the perceptions, concerns, and motivations of a disparate group of characters. She creates important opportunities not just for individual reflection, but for adult and teen discussion groups."

~D. Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

SPOILER ALERT for next review!

"How does a suburban community respond when it uncovers a predator hiding in plain sight, operating within the very school system meant to protect its children? In Pinned, Rebecca Chianese reflects on the dissonance between a community’s desire to safeguard its children and its instinct to protect its reputation at all costs. Isa, Olivia, Bailey, and Delaney have grown up together, their lives closely intertwined with Rory (Bailey’s brother), Kam, and Hunter, all senior members of the high school’s wrestling team. When the girls gradually pull away, the boys are left confused. They don’t understand the shift and contempt in the girls’ eyes. After all, they’re only treating them the way they’ve been taught, following insights from someone they trust. Then, a private moment is made public, further unravelling the already fragile threads. Meanwhile, Emmett Ainsworth, an alumnus and former state wrestling champion, thinks he has seen someone from his high school past, stirring memories and emotions he thought he’d buried. Can what he remembers stop what he suspects is happening again? As the adults cling to the status quo, the girls make a different choice: to take justice into their own hands.

In Pinned, Rebecca Chianese explores a universal trend in which those in power, faced with painful truths, often choose silence, not out of ignorance, but out of a desire to protect reputations, preserve order, and avoid consequences. This creates a culture of shame and silence, destroys trust, and models hypocrisy instead of integrity. Chianese’s writing is restrained yet emotionally charged, allowing tension to simmer beneath the surface. She adopts an observational tone rather than a judgmental one, making the moral failures of the adults in the story all the more damning. By presenting multiple perspectives, she captures the heartbreak, confusion, rage, fear, and quiet betrayal that form the core of the emotional landscape in the story. For me, the heroes here are Emmett and the girls, the most poignant moment being when Isa and Olivia, each in their way, come to realize that the boys, too, are victims. In the end, this is not just a story about harm, but the courage it takes to break cycles of silence. I highly recommend Pinned to anyone drawn to stories that confront uncomfortable truths with nuance, empathy, and emotional depth, especially readers who believe that silence, though easy, is never harmless."

Reviewed by Maalin Ogaja for Readers' Favorite  FIVE-STAR REVIEW