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silver_and_vengeance's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars
The ending was pretty anti climatic.
The ending was pretty anti climatic.
crabbylobster's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 stars.
The first half of this book was super creepy and weird, but the ending didn't live up to my expectations. Ambiguous endings are fine, but this one kind of veered into the mundane in the contemporary chapters. I really enjoyed the Salem chapters though.
The first half of this book was super creepy and weird, but the ending didn't live up to my expectations. Ambiguous endings are fine, but this one kind of veered into the mundane in the contemporary chapters. I really enjoyed the Salem chapters though.
aelong1399's review against another edition
4.0
Most of the book is really good, but the ending seems to get a little off topic.
jeslyncat's review against another edition
2.0
I really, really disliked this book. I don't know it that's because I was so excited about it--I mean, Salem Village plus exclusive boarding school! Heck yes. But, heck no to this. The characters were hard to like, there was no arc or purpose to the story, there was not ending whatsoever, and the Salem-era portions absolutely ruined this for me. They were inconsistently written and absolutely pointless.
ammiebelle's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to read this because I enjoyed The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. I had no idea it was YA when I added it to my list. I ended up enjoying it as a fast read. I hate saying it but as I was reading, I couldn't help but think that the main character wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. I guess that's better than being perfect. I really liked how the story was broken up with the tale of the Salem witch trials in the past. I almost wanted a strong connection to the two. Loved the Massachusetts setting ;-).
audreychamaine's review against another edition
2.0
I love the history of the Salem Witch Trials. A native Southern Californian, when I had an internship in New England, the only weekend trip I took was to Salem. I’ve been there multiple times since I moved to Massachusetts, and find the history fascinating. When I saw that Katherine Howe was writing a new young adult novel that had some basis in the Salem hysteria, I knew it was a must read. Sadly, it didn’t live up to my expectations.
Howe tries something interesting in Conversion. She links the current phenomena of mystery illness among high school students to the hysteria in Salem in the 1690s. The current school in Danvers, MA is a hotbed of stresses: girls worrying about grades, competing with each other for class rank, hoping to get into their ideal colleges, and, of course, boys. Then, the coolest girl in school starts to twitch uncontrollably in class.
This book had so much promise. It just didn’t work for me for the reason that some other young adult books by adult novelists don’t work. Howe doesn’t write in a convincing teen voice. Her first-person narrator comes across as inauthentic and stilted. On top of that, it takes her much too long to draw certain connections that are obvious to readers from the outset. There was much face-palming while I read this book.
While young adult fiction must seem like a goldmine, not all authors should attempt it. It isn’t as easy as it seems to write a good young adult novel, and Howe just doesn’t pull it off. It’s too bad. Conversion is a good idea, poorly executed.
Howe tries something interesting in Conversion. She links the current phenomena of mystery illness among high school students to the hysteria in Salem in the 1690s. The current school in Danvers, MA is a hotbed of stresses: girls worrying about grades, competing with each other for class rank, hoping to get into their ideal colleges, and, of course, boys. Then, the coolest girl in school starts to twitch uncontrollably in class.
This book had so much promise. It just didn’t work for me for the reason that some other young adult books by adult novelists don’t work. Howe doesn’t write in a convincing teen voice. Her first-person narrator comes across as inauthentic and stilted. On top of that, it takes her much too long to draw certain connections that are obvious to readers from the outset. There was much face-palming while I read this book.
While young adult fiction must seem like a goldmine, not all authors should attempt it. It isn’t as easy as it seems to write a good young adult novel, and Howe just doesn’t pull it off. It’s too bad. Conversion is a good idea, poorly executed.
jessdlibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
I love anything about the Salem Witch Trials. The juxtaposition between that time in Salem and current day Danvers kept the story thrilling and mysterious. I also enjoyed the thin line of fantasy added to the story without taking over, making it a mix of realistic, historical fiction, and fantasy.
captkaty's review against another edition
5.0
At an elite private girl's school in Danvers, Massachusetts, teenage girls have been coming down with mysterious ailments. Is it contagious? A reaction to the HPV vaccine? Or maybe an environmental toxin? Colleen starts to see similarities between current events and the events among another group of teenage girls in Danvers (previously known as Salem Village) over 300 years ago...
Conversion is told via two narrators, Colleen, in the present day, and Ann Putnam, one of the Salem witch accusers, confessing her sins and her part in the madness many years later. I usually hate this technique, but it actually worked very well for me here.
There was a lot I really enjoyed about this book and a lot I found smart and compelling. I did not love the end, although sounds like others did.
Conversion is told via two narrators, Colleen, in the present day, and Ann Putnam, one of the Salem witch accusers, confessing her sins and her part in the madness many years later. I usually hate this technique, but it actually worked very well for me here.
There was a lot I really enjoyed about this book and a lot I found smart and compelling. I did not love the end, although sounds like others did.
christajls's review against another edition
3.0
This review originally published at More Than Just Magic
There’s something particularly captivating about cases of mass hysteria. They grab my attention in the similar way as cults. I can’t help but wonder what makes people act this way and how it progresses to such intense levels. Apparently Katherine Howe wonders the same because these are some of the exact questions she tackles in her new novel, Conversion.
Conversion is a modern day incarnation of the Salem Witch Trials. The students of St Joan’s Academy have many of the same symptoms as the historical girls, and their sickness progresses along similar lines, sucking in more victims the bigger it gets. And as an added bonus, their town (Danvers) is near the location of historic Salem. There was a period of time in high school where I was obsessed with the Salem Witch Trials and read everything I could get my hands on about them. So the teenage history buff in me found this book fascinating. Throughout the novel, Howe intersperses short chapters from Ann Putnam’s confession after the real-life Salem Witch Trials. It was fascinating to read about the trails from the point of view of one of the “victims” and see the parallels between the two cases.
One thing that really stood out for me was the variety of characters affected by the symptoms. It wasn’t just a certain type of girl. However I would have liked to see a few guys thrown in as well. Though there are some similarities between now and then there are some big differences too. I know there are some unique pressures on girls in high school but teenage boys are not free from expectations, stress and anxiety. It felt a little unlikely that not a single guy was afflicted with the mysterious illness as well.
The narrator of the modern day narrative is a smart, fairly self confident girl named Colleen. She is a difficult character and that is both a good thing and a challenge. It’s good because it makes her a bit of an enigma, which helps deepen the mystery. It’s not so good however because it makes her difficult to connect with, because we don’t get a lot of character development or growth from her. The focus of Conversion is on the mystery, which was well plotted, but the limited character development hindered the emotional impact of the story.
I appreciated the comparisons Howe was making between the seventeenth century to modern day. They may be completely different time periods but there are more similarities than you would expect. Particularly the pressures based on young people. It isn’t as character-driven as I would have liked but the mystery of what was causing the girl’s disorder kept it interesting. Conversion is a fascinating book if you’re interested in the Salem Witch Trials or simply in the bizarre causes of human behaviour.
There’s something particularly captivating about cases of mass hysteria. They grab my attention in the similar way as cults. I can’t help but wonder what makes people act this way and how it progresses to such intense levels. Apparently Katherine Howe wonders the same because these are some of the exact questions she tackles in her new novel, Conversion.
Conversion is a modern day incarnation of the Salem Witch Trials. The students of St Joan’s Academy have many of the same symptoms as the historical girls, and their sickness progresses along similar lines, sucking in more victims the bigger it gets. And as an added bonus, their town (Danvers) is near the location of historic Salem. There was a period of time in high school where I was obsessed with the Salem Witch Trials and read everything I could get my hands on about them. So the teenage history buff in me found this book fascinating. Throughout the novel, Howe intersperses short chapters from Ann Putnam’s confession after the real-life Salem Witch Trials. It was fascinating to read about the trails from the point of view of one of the “victims” and see the parallels between the two cases.
One thing that really stood out for me was the variety of characters affected by the symptoms. It wasn’t just a certain type of girl. However I would have liked to see a few guys thrown in as well. Though there are some similarities between now and then there are some big differences too. I know there are some unique pressures on girls in high school but teenage boys are not free from expectations, stress and anxiety. It felt a little unlikely that not a single guy was afflicted with the mysterious illness as well.
The narrator of the modern day narrative is a smart, fairly self confident girl named Colleen. She is a difficult character and that is both a good thing and a challenge. It’s good because it makes her a bit of an enigma, which helps deepen the mystery. It’s not so good however because it makes her difficult to connect with, because we don’t get a lot of character development or growth from her. The focus of Conversion is on the mystery, which was well plotted, but the limited character development hindered the emotional impact of the story.
I appreciated the comparisons Howe was making between the seventeenth century to modern day. They may be completely different time periods but there are more similarities than you would expect. Particularly the pressures based on young people. It isn’t as character-driven as I would have liked but the mystery of what was causing the girl’s disorder kept it interesting. Conversion is a fascinating book if you’re interested in the Salem Witch Trials or simply in the bizarre causes of human behaviour.