Hysteria by Megan Miranda, a review

Loved this one!  There were a few confusing parts, but all in all it was very good.  Hysteria is about a 16 year old girl who killed her boyfriend.  You don’t really find out the whole story until the end so I’m not going to go into details here.  She was acquitted of murder by claiming it was self-defense.    The main character Mallory is haunted by the events of that night and by the deceased boyfriend’s mother who seems to have been driven insane by the murder/death of her son.   Mallory is sent to a prep school to get away from the problems she’s encountering at home but she feels like everyone has given up on her and thinks she’s terrible.  The school ends up being almost as bad, but at least she finds a friend.  Mallory ends up having nightmares at night that leave marks on her, and she can’t sleep without a sleeping aid so she takes sleeping pills every night.  The first night she is at the new school she dreams of her dead boyfriend, as usual but this time she feels something grab her shoulder.  The next morning when she wakes there are red marks there.  Someone breaks into her room a couple of times and she just generally has a bad time at school, and then there’s another murder, and it’s someone Mallory despises.  Did she murder again?  You’ll have to read the book to find out!  4 stars.

Model Spy by Shannon Greenland

Model Spy by Shannon Greenland: A review

I really wanted to like this book.  It had some pretty good parts in it but it fell flat for me.  I was barely able to finish it.  The main character was quirky and sweet, but didn’t have a lot of depth and wasn’t really well written.  The supporting characters were also pretty bad, for example the reader never learned anything at all about one of the team members, just that he was peaceful.  It was unrealistic, poorly written and unoriginal.  1 star.

What We Saw At Night by Jaquelyn Mitchard: A review

What We Saw At Night is a thriller/mystery about three teens who have a rare allergy to the sun and most other light as well called Xeroderma Pigmentosum.  These teens, Juliet the daredevil, Rob the sweet clueless guy, and Allie the narrator of the story, explore their town at night while everyone else is sleeping, since it’s the only safe time they can be outside.  All three are surprisingly athletic, with Juliet being a previous ski star.  One night they learn to do a new trick, Parkour, which is jumping and gymnastics on public buildings with no safety nets.  It’s dangerous and thrilling.  They begin to do Parkour all over town at night and at one apartment they see something they shouldn’t.  They see a man with a very distinctive white blonde stripe in his hair murdering a young girl, or at least Allie does.  The other two teens aren’t sure what they see.  In the beginning they try to pretend it didn’t happen and go on with their lives.  The truth of what she saw begins to eat away at Allie and starts to cause problems with her friendships.  One night Allie wants to make sure what she saw was real so she goes back to the same apartment and sees the same man and a different girl, also dead.  The man in the apartment sees Allie this time and begins to stalk Allie, almost hitting her with his car at one point.

What We Saw At Night is a very interesting read, not only because the characters are very unique but because the reader is kept on edge throughout the entire book. The author must have done her research into the sun allergy disease; it was very real and heartbreaking in places just from that angle of the story.   I really enjoyed this one and would recommend it to anyone who likes a mystery.    There isn’t a nice tidy ending and there will be a sequel.  I was a little aggravated with the ending, or lack of ending but it didn’t take away from the book itself.  I’m looking forward to the next book, I want to see where Allie ends up!