ttyl is a young adult novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Lauren Myracle

Lauren Myracle

Lauren Myracle is an American author of young adult books. She is the oldest of three sisters and has three older brothers. She grew up in Atlanta, Georgia where she attended Trinity School and The Westminster Schools...

, published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. In 2004, it gained attention for being the first-ever novel written entirely in the style of instant messaging

Instant messaging

Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...

 conversation. The novel was a New York Times, Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

, and Book Sense

Book Sense

Book Sense was a marketing and branding program of the American Booksellers Association, in which many independent bookstores across North America participated in order to better compete with the large book chains. Bookstores participating in the Book Sense program were expected to display the Book...

bestseller, and has had two sequels, ttfn

Ttfn (novel)

ttfn is a young adult novel by Lauren Myracle. Published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in 2005, it is the sequel to ttyl, and is also written entirely in the style of instant messaging conversation...

and l8r, g8r

L8r, g8r

L8r, g8r is the third novel in a young adult series by Lauren Myracle written entirely as instant messages; the first two are ttyl and ttfn. This again follows the lives of Maddie, Angela, and Zoe in their senior year at high school....

.

Plot

ttyl(Internet slang for "talk to you later") focuses on friendship throughout the series. Its main characters are Maddie (Madigan) Kinnick (screen name madmaddie), Zoe Barrett (zoegirl), and Angela Silver (SnowAngel). Zoe has to deal with a flirty teacher (known as Mr. H) at school who uses Christianity as an excuse to get close. At first, Zoe thinks that he is just being nice. But when one day, he invites Zoe to go into a hot tub with him and that he is "looking forward to seeing her in a bikini", Zoe realizes that Mr. H is hitting on her. Maddie gets too close to the high school's queen bee, a girl named Jana, and ends up in a scandal that everyone is talking about, thanks to Terri who forwarded pictures of her to almost everyone in school. Angela is afraid that her boyfriend, Rob, is being unfaithful.
Near to the end, Maddie has stopped talking to Angela and Zoe because of her depression and humiliation.