Megan Abbott

A high school girl has a strange fit in the middle of class one day, and is hospitalized later when she has a seizure at home. Soon it seems to be spreading, with two other girls in the same circle also having these seizures. The book follows a girl at the center of things, and her father who teaches at the school.

The book is pretty gripping and strange, and you don't know till the end what's going on. Abbott keeps things going nicely, though it does feel a tad scattered at the end. It's been a while since I've read Abbott, and she's made a turn from her earlier "based on true crime' noirish stories. She seems to capture the teenage girls in the story well (though it's been some time since I've known any).… (more)

Fictionalized story based on Winnie Ruth Judd, who was convicted of murdering two women in 1931, and who was nearly hanged for it. Abbott reimagines the story, as if things turned out a bit differently.

In 1931, Marion Seeley is left in Phoenix while her heroin-addict doctor husband is working in Mexico. While working in a clinic, she falls under the influence of two co-workers who are little more than prostitutes who entertain some the town leaders. Seeley is very innocent, almost too innocent, and she falls for a pharmacy owner, and falls into sin. This, and what happens next, parallels the Judd story, but what happens in the second half does not.

Abbott tells the story well, though perhaps Marion Seeley seems a bit too much the naif; but then again it is 1931. The book is short, a very fast read, and Abbott does portray the characters well.… (more)