Welcome to Litsy!

Guess I should have chosen to read by the pool and not the park 🥵

Finally a really good book from the #TBRDeckofCards. This book full of mass hysteria and teenage obsession was really good. It wasnt supernatural causes like I expected. I mever knew til the end what happened
#121in2021 @Clwojick

It's funny how you never think about your heart. About your real heart, I mean. Not when you're young like us. I heard her heart stopped for a minute. I've never thought about my heart before, have you?

A good pick from the #TBRDeckofCards after a couple that weren't my favorites. At least they are off my TBR now which is what this is about: good bad or ugly, lower my 516 book TBR. This one is described as dark, disturbing, and chilling. Seems right up my alley
@Clwojick #121in2021

#TBRtemptation post 1! Adding some replenishment to my #AutumnReads Display, most of what goes is #psychologicalsuspense. It‘s classified as #YA but is in our Adult section. One by one, the teenage girls at a high school begin to convulse and come down with some kind of sickness. Everyone panics while trying to figure out the cause, which could be a vaccine or toxic lake water. Taut and page-turning, reviewers say! #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎

Meh

During this COVID-19 pandemic, this seems like a fitting read.....great reviews too! Happy reading, my friends!

This book perfectly describes how the world often views teenage girls (confusing, hysterical, dramatic) and how teenage girls often view themselves (confused, powerless, left out). A little slow, but I didn't see the twist until right before the reveal (I usually figure it out long before then).

4⭐️

Another home run by Megan Abbott.

Like no one else, Abbott captures the terror & trauma of being a teenaged girl. They are at once powerful beyond their comprehension, and vulnerable in ways the world never sees.

The Fever employs the age-old hysterical girl story, but it‘s clearly a ruse for a darker story under that surface. A story steeped in desire, in the chasm between our true selves and the one we share.

Read this book♥️📚

A solid “meh.” This is less of a horror novel (or even thriller) and more of a novel about mean girls. It bore strong parallels (at least for me) to the Salem Witch Trials, for some reason. But it was mostly boring. The plot could have had a lot of propulsion, but it got bogged down in wandering writing that didn‘t really work. Blech. ⭐️⭐️

I was struggling with this at first, until I switched to the audiobook after about 50 pages. After that, I really enjoyed it. I thought Abbott did a good job of escalating the plot and building tension until things were resolved. The ending was a little predictable, but I enjoyed the story leading up to it enough that it‘s still a Pick.

The Fever by Megan Abbott. Personally, I'm not a very big fan of thrillers, but The Fever is REALLY good. Megan Abbott‘s intelligence and creativity makes this book even more challenging to figure out, good luck 😉.This unique plot twist and chaotic/mysterious outbreaks that engulf these girls, make this book more interesting every page you turn. 🧐🤭🤫😲
Rating: 3.5/5

Day one of summer vacation was great - the kids played outside and we had a picnic dinner in the back yard.
Day two of summer vacation took a turn for the worse with a high fever and a very unhappy toddler... I may be able to sneak a little reading in while we snuggle.

Up next!

I almost bailed at the 100 page mark thinking this was going to be a snooze fest. Then Meg put the fever in me. Deenie‘s best friend Lise has a seizure in school that leads to a cardiac event later at home that causes her to fall and hit her head against the table causing head trauma. While the doctors are trying to figure everything out, toxic female friendships come to light, and a mass hysteria takes over a community. Turned out to be a pick.

This is a book about the gravity of being a teenage girl, with changing bodies and new physical experiences (sexual and otherwise) and the feeling of being transformed into something scary and exciting.

It‘s also about the hysteria that grips a small town, and the tendency to look for answers in all the wrong places when they‘re really much simpler than we imagine. Abbott, as always, nails the realities of teenage girlhood.

Megan Abbott always manages to capture subgroup mentality really well. This was no different. She wrote the teenage girl experience through the lens of inexplicable illness that struck a high school. 4/5

So I was trying to break away from my norm of reading mystery/thrillers and I did a little...read a romance that I liked. But it‘s fall and it‘s October so I‘ll continue to read suspense for now...or will I?? 🧐

A healthy teenage girl has a sudden seizure in class. A second girl develops facial tics and faints. Girl after girl start exhibiting strange symptoms. What is making them sick? Could it be the HPV vaccine or the contaminated lake? Well Megan Abbott wrote this book so you know it is probably something more sinister than either of those. Strap in for a table of female desire, friendship, and competition.

I teach teenagers and young adults, so I like to read Megan Abbott novels to terrify myself about what teenage girls are thinking. Or maybe this is as close as I can get to Gillian Flynn until she puts out another book.

"No more reading! Pet me instead!" #Loki #CatsOfLitsy

Really enjoyed this one on audio, even through the dad narrator wasn't my favorite. Three POVs, three narrators. I love it when 2/3 of the way through a book, I have no clue how it's going to end. (Though usually when I guess how it's going to end I'm very pleased with myself, so it's a win either way.)

This was an odd novel. Following the collapse of one and then a number of teenage girls a small town struggles with fear and confusion. For me the potential here was not realised. The kids characters were flat and the parents and teachers annoying and distracting. It seemed Abbott tried to hard to make the town odd and spooky and extra detail that did not go anywhere just left me incredibly frustrated.

Um, no. I couldn‘t get with this book. This was my second Megan Abbott book, and I wasn‘t crazy about the other one either. Just too weird and overly sexual for me with seemingly no purpose.

I wasn't sure if I'd read an author with my initials. And then I remembered Megan Abbott. #MagicalMarch #Authorwithyourinitials @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

My nightstand. 😫🤗 This is ridiculous and exciting at the same time. Ten library holds came in at one time and of course I had to grab them All. When am I going to ever have the time to read #allthebooks ?!

As a microbiologist I thought this might be compelling. It just wasn‘t. It is a mess in terms of plot and character development. It was hypersexualized and I cannot figure out why. It was not important and did not add to the story. I also hated the depiction of teenage girls and their relationships. Disappointed.

This one is not going so well. I will finish because it is an audio book but I am losing interest fast. 😔

I totally got sucked into this story. The audio book was pretty good. Three different narrators. I found it compelling and really engrossing. I could also smell the hormones and teenage years pouring out in the words. That's a compliment in this case:)

Audio book time.

The storyline was quick and simple, but the narration was poor. When teenage girls from the same high school start experiencing weird symptoms like seizures, jaw clicking, and hallucinations chaos ensues.

Enjoying some audiobooks for my work day and @DebinHawaii 's recipe for ambrosia overnight oats. So stinking good. Perfect Monday cure.

Happy Thursday Littens!

Using a little teen drama to help me get through my day.

What are you listening to or reading today?! Share all the awesomeness with me.

I was a bit let down by the ending, but The Fever certainly had me reading until the end to find out what was going on with the girls.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the second of Abbott's novels which I have read. She certainly has skill creating tense atmospheres of uncertainty. By and large this was a solid thriller. Abbott's narrative of the outbreak of a mysterious illness in a high school, perfectly captures that group hysteria which breaks out so easily among teenage girls. This was a four star read for much of the novel for me, but the ending felt rushed and underwhelming.

Currently reading...

Going to try to get 45:00 in of #audiobiking for #litsypartyofone this AM. Interesting book so far! Lots of teenage hormones.

I usually work through audiobooks slowly, while I drive or walk, but I blazed through this one. With shades of the Salem Witch Trials and the power of suggestion, Abbott explores obsession in teenage girls and the reverberations for those around them. I listened at 1.75x speed, which only increased the urgency of the story. I loved this.

Early morning reading at the train station ☀️🚊

I am totally in the mood for some mean girls lately. Megan Abbott does them well.

Currently reading The Fever from my recent library TBR. Super excited for Nabakov's Favorite Word is Mauve, and, well, the rest too.

This book drew me in fast and was a quick and engrossing read. Great drama (so many teenagers = drama) I don't want to give away any spoilers so I'll just say that I enjoyed figuring out what was going on.

It was an interesting story overall, but the ending was pretty underwhelming.

Few things are more satisfying than reading by the glow of Christmas lights.

There was such good in this book but also such bass. It's kinda a mess but the idea is chilling and captivating. But there's no character growth, the author not really understanding weather with seasons, and the lack of characters communicating was frustrating. It could have been amazing and kept me up since I got it but I left me unsatisfied.

I'm just confused. How are these girls swimming in the middle of the winter? Is it a fake southern winter? This is my only issue.