Words on Conversion by Katherine Howe

Supernatural
Feb 23, 2015
2 min read

Colleen is a normal girl at St. Joan's Academy, a private school in Danvers. She's determined to keep her grades perfect, caring about being named valedictorian more than she would like to admit. She hangs out with her best friends, stresses over college, and lives with her family.

Things take a turn for the strange when Colleen's classmates begin falling victim to a strange illness that leaves them in fits. The media is having a field day over all the cases. Parents blame the school for not protecting the girls enough from whatever the cause may be, and theories are flying. No matter what the scientists and doctors are coming up with, Colleen has her own theories. Granted, they are a little far-fetched. Colleen unearths that Danvers used to be Salem village, the plave where the imfamous Salem Witch Trials took place. Colleen wonders if there could be a connection between thes trange fits of some of Salem's girls and what is happening to the girls today. If she is right, it would mean that the girls are either faking or that there is dark magic at work.

I liked Colleen as a character. She's very relatable because she's such an everyday teen girl. She worries too much about little things, messes with her phone at the dinner table, and so on. She worries a lot about college, and even when she's being nice to her friends, she is still happy when she does better than them, or gets an interview. She then feels guilty for being happy that they didn't do as well as she does, but she can't help being pleased in the first place. I feel like that's something that happens to everyone.

As for the story itself... I liked the idea of taking the Salem Witch Trials and putting it in a more modern setting. I was reading flashbacks that were by the POV of a girl in Salem during the trials, and while they were interesting, I don't feel like they tied into the story all that well. The flashbacks took away from the story a little bit, and I think the author could have focused more on the events in the present with Colleen and the other kids. The plot was okay, but I wasn't totally happy with the ending of the book. It kind of left me hanging with some "what if?" questions that opened up a door to new possibilites about the true cause of the strange disease. It was a little creepy, I'll say that. Overall, it was interesting and an okay read but not really good. Thumbs up to the cover, though! 3.75 stars.