Helpful Score: 1
This book was not what I was expecting but I ended up being very into it-I finished it in a single sitting. Suspenseful until the end, with a slow-moving plot that lets the tensions build and build. Teenage girls, man! Recommended.
Helpful Score: 1
**Thank you Little, Brown, and Company and Netgalley for providing this in exchange for an honest review**
Deenie's female classmates are getting sick. One by one, they're rushed to the hospital. Their symptoms range from uncontrollable eye twitching and fidgeting to Grand Mal seizures. No one knows for sure what is happening. Everyone has their own ideas, though. Some parents are convinced the HPV vaccine the school urged all the girls to get is causing this. How else could this illness completely skip the male students? One parents questions if its something the girls are catching during sex. A person or two even wonders if its Deenie acting as a carrier of this strange sickness. After all, she is the one friend all the girls have in common.
I'm really glad I received this through Netgalley and not the library. Had I gotten this through the library, I probably would have DNFd it in the first 15%. I found the fast paced POV switches were very jarring. While I liked Deenie's POV, I couldn't understand why her father and brother's POVs were included. At the time, it seemed if there were going to be multiple POVs, they should have been from the other female classmates. I also didn't care for Abbott's writing style. Since this was an ARC, I felt I had to make an effort to finish it. I'm glad I did. Now that I've finished this, I understand why Tom and Eli's POVs were used. The story wouldn't have worked as well any other way. And I did eventually warm up to the writing style. I actually look forward to reading something else by Abbott. Her characters jump up off the pages. I really felt like I was experiencing what this town was going through. This book had a very Stephen King Lite feel to it. This was very creepy and entertaining. Its one of the very few books that, while I didn't love it, I wish I could go back and read it for the first time again.
Deenie's female classmates are getting sick. One by one, they're rushed to the hospital. Their symptoms range from uncontrollable eye twitching and fidgeting to Grand Mal seizures. No one knows for sure what is happening. Everyone has their own ideas, though. Some parents are convinced the HPV vaccine the school urged all the girls to get is causing this. How else could this illness completely skip the male students? One parents questions if its something the girls are catching during sex. A person or two even wonders if its Deenie acting as a carrier of this strange sickness. After all, she is the one friend all the girls have in common.
I'm really glad I received this through Netgalley and not the library. Had I gotten this through the library, I probably would have DNFd it in the first 15%. I found the fast paced POV switches were very jarring. While I liked Deenie's POV, I couldn't understand why her father and brother's POVs were included. At the time, it seemed if there were going to be multiple POVs, they should have been from the other female classmates. I also didn't care for Abbott's writing style. Since this was an ARC, I felt I had to make an effort to finish it. I'm glad I did. Now that I've finished this, I understand why Tom and Eli's POVs were used. The story wouldn't have worked as well any other way. And I did eventually warm up to the writing style. I actually look forward to reading something else by Abbott. Her characters jump up off the pages. I really felt like I was experiencing what this town was going through. This book had a very Stephen King Lite feel to it. This was very creepy and entertaining. Its one of the very few books that, while I didn't love it, I wish I could go back and read it for the first time again.
