Conversion in The Under-Hyped Readathon!

Sep 04, 2014 Bettielee rated it really liked it

Shelves: library-book, fantasy, contemporary-literature, mystery-crime

This was a page turner. A sort of modern day exploration of the Crucible (a play about the Salem Witch Trials as an allegory for the McCarthy era witch hunts), which I have never read. Our main character, Colleen, goes to a high pressure Catholic girls school and is just a 1/10th of a point away from Valedictorian. Suddenly, other seniors in her class start having seizures, losing their hair, talking gibberish and vomiting up pins. It's just a couple girls at first, and then more and more , it s This was a page turner. A sort of modern day exploration of the Crucible (a play about the Salem Witch Trials as an allegory for the McCarthy era witch hunts), which I have never read. Our main character, Colleen, goes to a high pressure Catholic girls school and is just a 1/10th of a point away from Valedictorian. Suddenly, other seniors in her class start having seizures, losing their hair, talking gibberish and vomiting up pins. It's just a couple girls at first, and then more and more , it spreads in what appears to be a virus like pattern, but they can find no virus. The media and pundits descend, madness ensues. And someone is sending Colleen weird text messages urging her to read The Crucible. Interspersed between, we have "interlude" chapters that tell the story of Ann Putnam in the 1600's during the actual Salem witch trials. Frankly, I could have done without them. I just found them repetitive and interrupting the flow of the story I wanted to read about.

I'd say this was a pretty good representation of teenage girldom. I saw a lot of complaints that Colleen was hypercritical of people around her. Well, do you know any teenage girls? I found her a bit shallow at first - but not all teenage girls are out shooting rabbits beyond the fence of their dystopian village with their bow, you know. I can see a girl in this situation with the parents she had and the college applications and interviews putting a lot of pressure on her (not to mention that 1/10 of a percent) being incredibly tightly wound. Plus, the school itself was very cliquey and I'm sorry, but girls can be very competitive.

There continue to be theories surrounding what really happened in Salem in the 1600's and the real cause behind it all. I've read about the bread mold theory, simple hysteria, family feuds fueling the accusations, somewhere there was even an idea bandied around all the women were midwives and that's not even true - was it just teen girls dealing out revenge for sleights imagined or deserved? And this book also has lots of theories thrown around and fueling the story.

One thing I found totally unbelievable was the portrayal of media interviews. They were ridiculous, cheesy and really over the top. It seems in the arts : ie, movies, tv, books, the media is portrayed a certain way, and then there is real life. The media type portrayals did take me out of the story a little, because it suddenly felt like a farce.

Minor spoiler: there was a situation with a teen girl and a teacher having an affair and the story acted like it was really no big deal because Massachusetts apparently has an age of consent of 16. That's not the deal with statutory rape, guys. The deal is that a teacher is always in a position of power over a student and thusly, that kind of relationship is never ok. ...more

Like · see review

Apr 21, 2014 Melissa Chung rated it liked it

I'm giving this book 3.5 stars.

Lets start off this review with what the book is about. The book has two parallel stories. Both which are well written. The first story is of a group of teenage girls attending a private school in Danvers, Mass. A few girls fall ill with a 'mysterious illness'. The second story is of the Salem Witch Trials of 1706.

Lets talk about the pros. Individually both stories are sound to stand alone. Together they make an interesting combination.

I read the Author's Note's i I'm giving this book 3.5 stars.

Lets start off this review with what the book is about. The book has two parallel stories. Both which are well written. The first story is of a group of teenage girls attending a private school in Danvers, Mass. A few girls fall ill with a 'mysterious illness'. The second story is of the Salem Witch Trials of 1706.

Lets talk about the pros. Individually both stories are sound to stand alone. Together they make an interesting combination.

I read the Author's Note's in the back of this book and although the story written here is fictional the 'facts' surrounding it is truth. Katherine heard about a 'Mysterious Illness' in Le Roy, New York in 2012 and with that she fabricated a story that is completely realistic.

Cons of this book, words used to excess for example, demurred and like. I'm sure some people won't have a problem with these words, but when I read a word more than a handful of times it starts blinking on the page like traffic light. I can't help but see it over and over.

I gave this book 3.5 stars because realistically I was only interested in the 1706 part of the story. I wanted Ann Putnam to continue with her story. I was caught up emotionally with these terrible children. Their terrible lies, that caused a deep well of loss, sorrow and distrust to an entire community. I have heard of the Salem Witches I've seen the movie 'The Crucible' or heard about the story when I was in high school. Just knowing that 19 people really died because a bunch of girls lied is just so sad.

In present day or 2012 Colleen is the main character. I didn't feel any connection to her. I felt all the girls at St. Joan's were shallow. I didn't really like Colleen's voice. She didn't seem sympathetic to her friends or the people around her. She seemed just really rude to all the adults in her life and kind of snobby to her friends.

I'm sorry this review isn't better worded. I am still having mixed feelings on it. It was a fast read. It wasn't boring, but at the same time I felt I wanted to skip parts and just read what happened already.
...more

Like · see review

Jun 25, 2014 TheBookishLadybird rated it liked it

Shelves: owned

I really thought this book sounded like a fantastic premise but it was largely disappointing, it sounded like it had the potential to be a bit of a suspenseful, thrill ride but, came up really flat. I DID like the story but, I definitely didn't love it & that shows from the fact that it took me quite a while to get through..... I felt that the world wasn't developed enough & the way that things were brought to a conclusion & how that conclusion was explained were not developed enough to be that ...more

Like · see review

May 30, 2014 Betty F rated it liked it

I like how ambiguous this story was; like we know that there's a disease and it could be related to the Salem witch trials but of course that sounds insane, but the back & forth in narration definitely made it plausible. I really liked Colleen as a narrator. ...more

Like · see review