Teenage Girls Suck. My Review of "Conversion" by Katherine Howe

There was a great deal to like in this book.  Ms. Howe is an engaging writer.  Her teenaged characters are neither Mary Sues nor stock archetypes.  The main character has normal adolescent angst with all of the accompanying insecurities.  While I was not in prep school like the girls in the book I could definitely relate to their problems.  The main plot of the book centers around a girls' prep school in Danvers (formerly Salem Village) Massachusetts.  During their senior year, a number of girls fall victim to a horrible illness in which they twitch, get uncontrollable verbal tics, lose their ability to walk, and even lose their hair.  The media has a field day with the St. Joan's "Mystery Illness" and theorize causes on everything from environmental toxins to the HPV vaccine.  Of course, because Danvers, Massachusetts is on the site of the former Salem Witch Trials, the implications of witchcraft are omnipresent.  This witchcraft subplot was my main issue with the book and one that prevented me from giving it a higher rating.

The academic pressure for the college-bound student is a very real bugaboo for any student in one's senior year.  The panic over picking the right school, getting good SAT scores, maintaining good grades and getting through the admissions process can cause anybody to go kookoo for Cocoa Puffs.  The book covered these topics admirably, and Colleen Rowley, the book's protagonist, was real and likeable with just the right touch of teenage snark to make her realistic.  The fact that the book was based on real events that transpired in Le Roy, New York also gave the novel a verisimilitude that it might have lacked otherwise. 

The main issue I had with the book was the whole Salem witchcraft red herring.  The historical flashbacks, while interesting, didn't ring true.  The speech of the supposed 18th century characters sounded suspiciously like CNN newscasters.    While I got the author's intended parallels--the author obviously doesn't have much faith in her readers' intelligence and spells it out for you--I thought it superfluous and detracted from the main plot. The only hint one gets of any supernatural hanky-panky comes at the end when the hypochondriac mother of the best friend intimates that, "My Emma's like me, you know..she's prone to spells."  This is after Colleen accuses her best friend, Emma, of causing the whole thing.  I suppose the witchery was inevitable given the setting, but it was distracting and poorly executed.  The ending felt a bit rushed, as well.  I got the feeling that Ms. Howe wanted to ascribe the mystery illness to supernatural factors and then changed her mind.

The novel is a fairly intelligent YA read with enough plot twists to keep mystery fans content.  The characters are realistic, if a bit stilted, but I chose to blame that on their New England WASP upbringing.  In all, Conversion is an enjoyable mystery novel that encompasses adolescent academic angst admirably.