Hysteria

Hysteria by Megan Miranda was a pretty good read. I started it, thinking I would only read just a few pages. Big mistake! Once I started, I was basically instantly hooked and all I wanted to do was just read it. It made concentrating on a huge term paper a bit difficult ;)

As you read, readers are in the same state of mind that Mallory it - you don't know anything. She has to put together the pieces throughout the book and you get to do so alongside her.

Hysteria wasn't quite as scary as I was expecting, which was a great thing for me as I am a wimp. The last section of the book was one though that I had to wait until morning and the light to finish because I was afraid of how things would play out.

I really enjoyed the characters in Hysteria. Mallory is a great main character, and I wish I had a friend like Colleen. Also, Reid? TOTAL HUNK. All the scenes with him made the book 10x better. I loved the relationship that developed between him and Mallory - it was sort of a slow build throughout the book.

This was my first Megan Miranda book and will certainly not be my last. Megan Miranda delivers a fast paced ride that doesn't let up for a moment. While a few parts weren't as clear as I would have liked, the story and the characters just really are fantastic. (

What I Loved:

Where do I even begin? This was one of those "Who cares if I have to get up in the morning? I'm going to keep reading!" books. It's dark, haunting, suspenseful, and poignant, and I found it absolutely compelling.

I'll start with Mallory. Poor girl had suffered a traumatic event and instead of getting her some counseling, her parents shipped her off to boarding school with a prescription for sleeping pills and the admonition to be good. Mallory *was* good, or she was trying to be, but she was slowly losing her mind to hallucinations and secret memories and the terror that gripped her tighter and tighter as the story progressed. I found Mallory to be sympathetic. I easily identified with her relationships with others. And her terror became my terror until I was nearly skimming the paragraphs because I just had to know that it ended okay for her.

I really loved the setting, too. The author is skilled at bringing details to life. I could smell the ocean and feel the breeze in the scenes in Mallory's home town. And the dark, foreboding, secretive atmosphere of the boarding school became a setting in its own right.

The pacing was superb. The tension tightened as the plot progressed, and the author fed us bits and pieces of Mallory's past even as we hurtled into a future where she seemed destined to go crazy, either from a ghost haunting her or from the dangerous girl in her dorm or from the fracturing of her own mind. There were moments of heartwarming friendship, terrible fear, and poignant insight into what makes us human and what matters. The story itself is both lovely and scary, a combination that definitely works for me.

What Left Me Wanting More:

There were a few times early on in the story when the author gave us flashbacks without using italics (structuring it as Mallory just remembering something offhand) and I found myself sometimes a bit confused over *when* that memory happened. I had to re-read a couple of paragraphs to make sure I understood the context. But after that, every detail, past or present, was smooth.

Final Verdict:

A dark, terrifying tale full of heartache and suspense, HYSTERIA is a must-read for fans of thrillers, mystery, or simply a well-written story that will keep you up long past your bedtime.