Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this one in exchange for an honest review!

This book follows teen girls in a boarding school. Something strange starts happening as girls just get struck with screaming fits.

Firstly, I adore this cover! I also liked the premise. However, I was not a huge fan of this one. It was way too slow for my personal taste. I think the pacing was just way off.

This one had potential but unfortunately did not work for me. I hope others love it!

My favourite Hanna Alkaf yet - absolutely haunting and brilliantly embedded in oppressive, violent silence, and the way teen girls' voices and bodies are tamped down into palpable rage.

Thank you to S&S and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Hanna Alkaf has truly become one of my favorite writers. She brings to life the joy of storytelling in a way I hadn't experienced since I was a young reader myself, and that has truly been a gift now as a middle-aged reader.

There is a lot going on in this book and it moves kind of slowly, making it a dense read, but it's worth it. It takes these complex, heavy ideas and combines them into a single plot. That could easily become overwhelming or underexplored in a lesser novel. In Alkaff's hands, though, it all weaves together in a sensible, understandable way. It's not a fun read, exactly, but it is a fascinating one and well worth the effort.

I value the opportunity I was given to read this in advance, but I still haven't read this. With so many books ahead of me, I cannot return to this title.

I wanted to love THE HYSTERICAL GIRLS OF ST. BERNADETTE’S, but I found the plot to stray a bit too far from the premise. Still, Hanna Alkaf delivered a strong work here, and an impressive debut.

Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly adore or idolize Hanna Alkaf even more, she came back with another book to remind me why we need her in this industry. (And why she’d always remain in my auto-buy list!) Thanks to Hanna Alkaf herself and Netgalley for giving me this ARC for review.

I’m not exactly well-versed with YA/MG – the genre that Hanna Alkaf dominates in. I cannot tell if she writes good YA or if the characters are typical of the ones featured in other YA books, but what I am convinced of after going through this book is this – Hanna is one hell of a storyteller.

I have left my young adulthood many, many years ago (exuding my aunty aura here) and sometimes struggle to empathize with what the protagonists go through in other YAs I’ve read, but I couldn’t help rooting for the girls at St. Bernadettes. Perhaps I am a little bit biased as it is also a reminder of my own schooling years. I was also in an all-girls school, and even though the background story of the girls were not the same as mine, I could feel similar vibes permeating in the air of St. Bernadette’s and the girls - the keen instinctive energy to protect our own.

(On a more personal note, though I only recently found out that Hanna went to CBN and this book was like her ode to her alma mater, I was not surprised. I can always tell if another girl went to an all- girls’ school. The ‘girls’ girl’ vibe is obvious😉)

Fortunately, when I was in school, we didn’t have ‘hysteria’ cases like this. We did have a string of other issues of our own, but hysteria was not one of them. This was why I was intrigued because from what I had read before, many of the cases that happened in Malaysia, tend to happen in SBPs, and mine was a day school like St. Bernadette’s. I was glad that I could explore it from the minds of the characters that Hanna featured in this book.

In terms of characters, I did feel like they gave off a young-adult vibe, which made them very believable. From the discussion on kpop to the stresses of facing SPM, we got to explore the myriad of things that go through the minds of girls transitioning into womanhood. The story is presented through the POV of two main characters – Khadijah or Khad, and Rachel. As we move between the two POVs, we learn more about the school and the haunting that plagues its student body.

Khad is in Form 4 and is voluntarily mute after going through a dark period in her short life. Together with her besties, Sumi and Flo, the trio try to unveil the mystery of the screaming before another girl close to them becomes the next victim. Meanwhile, perfect student Rachel is in her Form 5, geared towards success to ace her SPM as is she apt to do, despite being socially inept. I love seeing how Khad and Rachel find their lives intertwined, and what they do in face of trouble.

What I love about Hanna Alkaf is that she always tries to centre mental health issues in the form of her characters. While the topic is always heavy and hard to chew, going through what the protagonists go through make the issues more approachable. At least instead of pretending as if they don’t exist or worse - blaming the victims, it gives me hope that in this increasingly unforgiving world, there are people trying to do their best to make changes for the better.

While I’m not really keen on the rather abrupt ending, this was such a good book to go into. The writing, the flow and the pacing were so well done that I was done with the book before I knew it. The book delved into the problems teenage girls typically go through, but so often swept under the rug. I also love how very Malaysian this book was, I didn’t realize this until it was pointed out by international readers about the usage of Manglish or the Malaysian school environment. That made me extra proud as a Malaysian. Representation matters and Hanna Alkaf is here for it.

Highly recommended, especially for my fellow Malaysians!

This is an amazing, albeit incredibly intense, YA drama/thriller, with supernatural elements and some amazing representation. Definite content warnings for sexual assault and gaslighting, but it's deftly handled and at the center of the book.

St. Bernadette's girls.. don't worry, I scream too just because I live in SEA 😔 /hj

Big thanks to @hanna.alkaf herself and Netgalley for the ARC!! 🫶 It's my first time getting an arc from a SEA author, even better an author that I adore.

Okay my honest review: I FEEL FOR THE GIRLS. The struggle being a young woman in SEA, the struggle of being a teenager who seeks for their true self, the challenge of being JUST A GIRL in this economy. Everything sounds so normal yet it's very hard to just live everyday with such high expectations from the society 😔

Khadijah and Rachel, two different girls with different backgrounds, different traumas, bonded by one incident that changed their school life. They screamed. And it wasn't usual, it wasn't normal at all. Their scream led them to the dark history within the old and magnificent St. Bernadette's building.

The storytelling was light and easy to follow, I felt like I'm back attending classes at school along with the girls. I love how Hanna Alkaf united our main characters together, it was unexpected and SMART like, I just love their intention to help each other despite their own traumas.

However there is something that missing LIKE I need some answers!!! I NEED MORE... I WANT MORE... the horror, the thrill, the suspense!! 👀 I want to dive even deeper into St. Bernadette's history. I want to know more of Khadijah & Rachel's friendship. However, the story itself was nicely untangled, peeling the mystery one by one, since the readers were as clueless as our main characters.

Overall, I'm giving it 4 stars!! ⭐️ it was a fun ride, full of SCREAMING, and enjoyable read :D the book will be published on September 24. So, my fellow SEA readers, please expect this book!! 🫶

TWs⚠️ Sexual assault, PTSD, trauma

The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette's by Hanna Alkaf
4 stars ✨

find more on my bookstagram! @moonlace.blooms

This is my first ever ARC review. Grateful to Hanna for the opportunity to read this book in advance of its publication.

Being from a neighboring country, a lot of the Malaysian horror stories are familiar to me. Here too we have had episodes of screaming hysterical girls which also took place in all-girls’ schools. This shared experience lent the book an additional creepy edge.

Beyond the hauntings and hysterics there are female friendships, fraught family dynamics, traumatic events and societal oppression of young women. What happens when girls tell unwelcome truths? They are made to stay quiet and docile, until they crack - and go completely silent. Or scream.

Greatly enjoyed this story.

I liked that the story was set in a place I do not typically read about. This books finds a way to talk to about trauma in a way that young adults can relate to. The story was slow at times and I am still processing the ending, but overall a captivating read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This was so eery and definitely caught my attention from the first chapter, but then the pacing didn’t quite work for me after. I’m not sure why this couldn’t keep me interested, maybe it was the characters themselves? The switching between POVs didn’t feel as seamless as it should have and the characters weren’t as developed as I would have liked them to be.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon Teen for this arc!

I can't tell if this author isn't for me or if this book was just a one off bad experience from me. The synopsis grabbed my attention immediately, but the pacing plodded along and didn't give me enough breadcrumbs to keep me invested. We need clues. We need suspense.

This was one of the most unique YA thriller/horror books I've ever read. This book takes place at a private all girl's school in Kuala Lumpur. I really enjoyed learning about the culture, unique phrases, and just overall different school and lifestyle these girls lived. This book mainly follows two students Rachel and Khadijah (Khad). Rachel has an abusive mother who forces her to be a perfectionist and live out the goals and dreams of her mother. Khad is suffering from a traumatic event (check trigger warnings) and has stopped talking. Seemingly out of nowhere girls at St. Bernadette's school girls start to scream - they become entranced and scream at the top of their lungs. Khad is determined to find out why it's happening after some of the 'screamers' start to disappear. This book feels very horror/paranormal while also symbolizing what life is like for women and the wolves in sheep's clothing that hide in plain sight. Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this eARC.

Focused on the darker side of academia, girls are screaming. What's caused the outbreak? Is it real? Imagined?

Khadijah and Rachel are the two characters that switch off explaining a story as their stories connect. Khadijah, mute after abuse by a family member and Rachel, inundated with messages from her mother about being the best (which doesn't include acting which is what Rachel wants to do). Their stories begin to intertwine as they veer toward the "hysterical" side of women's right to control their bodies and their fates.

It's a stronger story with a message that will resonate with fans of McGinnis and Arnold and set in Malaysia adding a level of cultural interest for an American audience, but some things remain the same which is a sad truth demonstrated by this mystery.

If a book is about a boarding school/academy, I'm in. 100%. The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette (how much do we love that title??) is told from multiple points of view. Khadijah doesn't speak. There is some allusion to an incident in her past, and we do find out about it. She has two very loyal friends who don't seem to mind that she doesn't speak and doesn't like to be touched so much. I like that while Khadijah is grateful for her friends, she doesn't feel like she owes them, or she doesn't deserve them. I often think that in books (and in real life) any kind of kindness shown to women elicits some response of, "I'm so lucky!" But when her sister is a screamer, Khadijah wants to figure out why.

We also have Rachel, who has to be absolutely perfect because her mother demands it. Rachel becomes a screamer as well, and finds that her personality is starting to shift. At first it's thrilling, but soon becomes upsetting, and she also wants to know what's going on.

Overall, the book is good. It's a pretty quick read. I wasn't in love with the ending but that's just me. I see how it lead to that and it was okay.

…Wow. This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I think the fact that it was set in Malaysia really added to the book. The slow pace also helped the book (which is not something I ever thought I’d say).

First off, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for access to this eARC. All opinions are my own. Secondly, trigger warning for sexual assault, sexual assault on a minor, sexual assault from a parent’s romantic partner, death, predators. Please, be kind to yourself and proceed with caution.

Ok, review time.

To put it bluntly, I really enjoyed this book. It is set in Malaysia which isn’t something I’ve seen often and would love to see more of. The different language, different culture, please, it was great. I love it when publishers actually publish more than just the typical white, American fare. Especially when it comes to horror.

St. Bernadette’s is a school with a prestigious reputation. It’s an all girl’s school and the girl’s that graduate from there are set up to go to more prestigious schools for university and get good jobs. There are two points of view, two different girls.

One girl does not speak due to her trauma and the other girl has an exacting and demanding mother. One used to be on the debate team, the other has extracurriculars that her mother knows about and demands are done well.

As the story goes on, weird things start happening. See, roughly ten years prior, there was an epidemic of screaming at the school. Girls started screaming and couldn’t stop. It spread from one to the other. The current year of students have no idea about that, until it starts happening. And the screaming just gets chalked up to the girls being hysterical.

One girl is watching television and there’s a white American man who is apparently an expert on female hysteria and claims that’s all it is. And as she’s watching, she wonders what makes him an expert and I couldn’t agree more. What makes a man especially one from another country, an expert on something that happens to girls and women at all? It was just a nice touch because he didn’t speak to any of the girls, he just stated it as fact.

The girl with the exacting mother thinks the same way.

I liked the characters in this, especially the one with the exacting mother. When she starts changing, doing things that she wants, and having to hide them from her, I was so proud lol I was so happy she was giving her wants more attention. Although things did get dark for her.

When it comes to the girl with selective mutism, she broke my heart.

From here on I will speaking about the triggering content, continue carefully. This is also mildly spoiler-y.

She suffered rape at the hands of someone in her household. And she went mute because she was so tired of talking. She had to tell her mother, the cops, the lawyers. She had to tell the story over and over again until she just couldn’t talk any more. She was spent. Now, her rapist did get jail time, which he deserved.

But, her mother keeps trying to get her to talk and at one point late in the book asks her “how long are you going to keep punishing me?” and that struck me oddly. The book handles it how it does but I still can’t stop thinking about that. Because I don’t see it as her punishing her mother. Even if she did which, the book took a bit of that perspective. But that’s just my opinion on it. I don’t see it as punishment. If I had to talk about the most traumatic thing in the world that happened to me over and over again, I think I’d stop talking to because I’d be spent. She does get her voice back though, which was nice to see.

Ok, that’s the end of the main triggering content.

Onto the ending. I liked it but it kept me from giving it a 5 star rating and dropped it down to a 4. There is a victim in this story, or should I say, another. After all, a lot of the girls start screaming and they’re victims too. But I didn’t like how the ending wrapped up because I didn’t feel like the victim got enough justice. When you get there, I think you’ll understand. I just wanted a bit more. Something.

Spoilers for the next paragraph.

She was left in the tunnels, her bones left where her killer left her. Yes, he was killed, but it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t buried, her mother doesn’t know where she is still. It wrapped up very quickly and I just didn’t like that.

End of spoiler.

Overall though, it was a great read, and I feel like the trauma was handled really well. There’s more to be said for how the girl with selective mutism dealt with her friends. Or how they dealt with her mutism. One was down for her no matter what and the other was having a difficult time. But I think it was handled well.

This gets 4 stars from me. I think it’s a good read and if you can handled the content, I think it should be read!

The hysterical girls of st Bernadette’s

An enjoyable young adult, dark academia book. At St. Bernadette’s, high rigor and emphasis on academic excellence is expected and required.

This book follows several young girl’s points of views as how they navigate the school in light of a recent phenomenon impacting students. Continued incidents of young girls who go into screaming fits is plaguing the school. No one is sure what is leading to the events or what to do about them other than exclude the girls from attending the school. What is the cause ? Mass hysteria, a paranormal force, or something else all together?

After the “spells” no one is able to communicate what happened and they don’t remember the event.

One of our narrators hasn’t spoke in 3 months as a result of trauma they experienced. She is obsessed with the mysteries of the scream, especially after it impacts her sister and girls start to go missing.

The other POV is related to a character who aspires to be an actress and work with the arts. The only problem is her overbearing mother won’t entertain that kind of future for her daughter at all. She decides to go with auditioning and finds herself in a spiral with unclear boundaries between who she is and her character.

I felt the premise was very interesting and I was engaged. The ending came a little quick and I feel some things were unresolved, but over all it was an enjoyable reading experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster’s Children Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In this story, several girls have been abused by someone involved in their school. The girls try to tell the adults in charge and their parents, but no one listens. So to get noticed, the girls scream. At first, the reader thinks the screaming is because the girls are possessed, and the adults label them as hysterical–hysterical in the true meaning of the word: affected by uncontrolled extreme emotion. The screaming can last for 30 minutes, at which point the girls are sent home. Eventually these same girls end up missing, and still the adults in charge do nothing. Told in two voices of two affected girls, the readers are allowed to follow their emotions throughout the story. The ending left much to be desired. While all of the girls confront the abuser, there is no resolution to his actions, he just disappears. The other issue of the overbearing, verbally abusive mom was also not resolved. A depressing but quick and worthwhile read.