Author: Hanna Alkaf
Genre: magical realism
Similar books: A House Unsettled by Trynne Delaney
The Changing Man by Tomi Oyemakinde
Rating:
.JPG)
Summary (provided by publisher): For over a hundred years, girls have fought to attend St. Bernadette’s, with its reputation for shaping only the best and brightest young women.
Unfortunately, there is also the screaming.
When a student begins to scream in the middle of class, a chain reaction starts that impacts the entire school. By the end of the day, seventeen girls are affected—along with St. Bernadette’s stellar reputation.
Khadijah’s got her own scars to tend to, and watching her friends succumb to hysteria only rips apart wounds she’d rather keep closed. But when her sister falls to the screams, Khad knows she’s the only one who can save her.
Rachel has always been far too occupied trying to reconcile her overbearing mother’s expectations with her own secret ambitions to pay attention to school antics. But just as Rachel finds her voice, it turns into screams.
Together, the two girls find themselves digging deeper into the school’s dark history, hunting for the truth. Little do they know that a specter lurks in the darkness, watching, waiting, and hungry for its next victim…
My opinion: There is a lot going on in this book and it moves kind of slowly, making it a dense read, but it's worth it. It takes these complex, heavy ideas and combines them into a single plot. That could easily become overwhelming or underexplored in a lesser novel. In Alkaff's hands, though, it all weaves together in a sensible, understandable way. It's not a fun read, exactly, but it is a fascinating one and well worth the effort.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
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