“Pretty Little Things” Author: I Want My Kids to Be Scared of Facebook

Author Jilliane Hoffman, former Miami attorney, dished last night on one of the motivations behind penning her latest thriller "Pretty Little Things": keeping her kids away from social media sites.

"I told myself I was going ot scare the pants off my children," quipped Hoffman, who spoke at Books & Books Tuesday night. "And I am going to make sure they never want to go on their own Facebook or MySpace [pages]."

The South Florida mom said her new book, which details the disappearance of Coral Springs teen, made her fluent in the language -- and acronyms -- associated with youth culture.

"It was such a frightening and relevant topic I felt I had to write a book about it," she said. "You constantly see children who have either been abducted of they have met people from MySpace, Facebook, chat rooms -- and sometimes parents look the other way."

Hoffman worked for both the Miami-Dade State Attorney's office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and has authored three additional thrillers.

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