The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette's

By: Hanna Alkaf

Narrated by: Samantha Tan, Mirai

Three starred reviews!

An all-girls school is struck with mysterious cases of screaming hysteria in this “gripping, perceptive” (Booklist, starred review) dark academia young adult thriller haunted by a deeply buried history clawing to the light.

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…

Plot twist/ betrayal

I dislike the slow start to the book but liked how interesting it was in the middle and end. I disliked how slow the reader was talking but I liked how much you could tell when people were talking and who was.