This year has come packed with an avalanche of pretty bad YA books. I don't think it's entirely up to me, though. True, most of it is due to the facts that, a) the more I read YA, the more my standards go up and my tolerance threshold for BS and stupidity lowers, and b) the more time I spent in GR, the less afraid I am of giving out 1 stars. We're not even halfway through 2014, and I'm almost certain this has been my biggest 1-star year to date. Inspired by true events-from seventeenth-century colonial life to the halls of a modern-day high school, this is the mystery that raises the question, what’s really happening to the girls at St. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen-who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit-comes to realize what nobody else has. Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Joan’s buzzes with rumor rumor blossoms into full-blown panic. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. Until they can’t.įirst it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker.

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