Conversion -- Review by Arinze Mgbemena

 

     The book "Conversion" by Katherine Howe, is story about a girl named Colleen going through her senior year of high school. She is trying to focus on school and stay stable through the stress of her life at that moment. One day in class, a girl named Clara began having vigorous twitches and tics which was very awkward. Later on, Clara’s friends, and then other girls, started having horrible and strange diseases and events happening to them which soon concerns people in the town. The media commences to cover stories on the girls problems. Colleen tries not to let the girls' problems affect her while she is being stressed out from her last year of high school. Until one of her own friends gets sick. Colleen starts reading "The Crucible" for extra credit, given to her by a substitute teacher. Colleen begins to see similarities between the historical Salem and the events happening on the same area she lives on. This makes her go deeper into the subject and wonder if the girls are faking all of what's happened or if the girls are in an actual dangerous situation.

       "Conversion" was an interesting book mostly because of all the mystery put in it. I enjoyed how the author at the beginning of the story talked about the stresses of high school work. Then she moves on to the mysteries of the Salem witch trials and how it is affecting the high school student life. It was also intriguing how she brought us back to the Salem ages and modern day throughout the whole book. It let you know the differences between those times and how they were reacting to the same type of event. I really enjoyed this book and i would recommended it to anyone one of my friends.