The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette's

by Hanna Alkaf

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

St. Bernadette’s is known for many things: turning girls into respectful young women — and their blood-curling screams. The school concludes that it’s just female hysteria, but something sinister is lurking deep within the grounds…

Four starred reviews!

An all-girls school is struck with mysterious cases of screaming hysteria in this dark academia “thrilling mix of ghost story and realism” (School Library Journal, starred review) 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…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781534494602
Publisher:	Salaam Reads / Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	09/24/2024
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Hanna Alkaf is the author of The Weight of Our Sky, Queen of the Tiles, The Girl and the Ghost, Hamra and the Jungle of Memories, and The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette’s, as well as coeditor of the young adult anthology The Grimoire of Grave Fates. She graduated with a degree in journalism from Northwestern University and has spent most of her life working with words, both in fiction and nonfiction. She lives in Kuala Lumpur with her family.

Editorial Reviews

Alkaf uses Malaysian supernatural elements to good atmospheric effect; even better is the sensitive, riveting portrayal of the girls’ inner lives. United, their voices become a blunt instrument...but one wielded with great skill and efficacy.” —Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

Praise for The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette’s

* “Alkaf successfully uses the oppressive mood and ominous hauntings to convey real-life terrors, from sexual violence to societal expectations, that keep young women from being heard. A gripping, perceptive read.”—Booklist (starred review)

* “Piercing observations into the teens’ struggles gaining autonomy are explored alongside sensitively wrought instances of trauma and sexual violence via immersive prose.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A perceptive examination of trauma and its manifestation on women’s bodies, minds, and voices.”—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2024-05-30
An all-girls school in Kuala Lumpur is beset by a mass hysteria of screaming students.

The first screamer was the new girl. Soon, more terrified shrieks echo off the old stone walls of prestigious St. Bernadette’s, a school with a reputation for grooming Malaysia’s brightest young women. Sixteen-year-old Khadijah Rahmat doesn’t speak much and is dealing with trauma after a sexual assault. Rachel Lian, an academic super-achiever, is struggling to emerge from the shadow of her overbearing mother. When Khadijah’s sister becomes a screamer—and the screamers start disappearing—she feels compelled to act. Rachel, meanwhile, is haunted by the ghost of a screamer who disappeared years ago. Khadijah and Rachel uncover dark secrets the school would rather keep hidden. The atmospheric writing creates a sense of foreboding that effectively portrays the horror of the girls who are pulled into the unknown. The complex mother-daughter relationships show how the teens’ lack of agency affects them: From decisions over academics and extracurricular activities to being monitored when they should be supported and finding their concerns brushed off, there’s a sense of their being trapped by duty and societal expectations. Unfortunately, the girls’ voices feel interchangeable and older than their years, and experienced genre readers may easily anticipate the big reveal. Still, the story admirably takes on themes of trauma and sexual assault and encourages the girls to find their voice.

A perceptive examination of trauma and its manifestation on women’s bodies, minds, and voices. (content note)(Thriller. 13-18)

Kirkus Reviews