Next door neighbors Bree and Lara used to be BFFs... until about a year ago. Lara is not exactly sure what caused the friendship to break up, but when it did, it split the adjacent households irrevocably. Lara's little sister, Sydney, and Bree's little brother, Liam, used to be friends as well. But now no one is friends with each other. Where one yard ends, the other begins, and the two family's paths cross rarely.

So Lara starts making online friends, namely... Christian. They have a flirtatious, congenial and fun online romance for awhile. Then, one day everything changes. Out of the blue, Christian lets her know that he is done with her. More specifically, he tells her that the world would be better off without her. She tries to plead with him, beg him to tell her what happened. Her message gets returned; Christian is no longer accepting correspondence from the girl.

Shortly thereafter, Sydney bangs on the bathroom door. As usual, Lara is taking way too long in the shower, and she is likely using up all of the hot water. Annoyed, she yells at her sister to hurry up. No response. This is a bit odd. Usually, Lara yells back at her to chill and wait her turn. Concerned, Sydney tells her mother what is going on. A girl with a psychiatric history who locks herself in the bathroom and who is not responding to banging or shouting on the other side of the door. Not a good equation.

Who is this Christian Dewitt? The police interview the family, their friends and their neighbors. Someone is going to get to the bottom of this. Cyber bullying has to stop because people could end up dead.

Backlash by Sarah Darer Littman, 2015

• Books on cyber bullying
• Books on suicide
• Sarah Darer Littman's web site