A review by haleyelisereads
Hysteria by Megan Miranda

4.0

Mallory doesn’t remember what happened the night she killed her boyfriend Brian. The evidence shows it was in self-defense, but still her once loved town now hates her. To get away from everything, and get away from everyone that knows of her crime her parents send her away to her father’s old prep school, Monroe. Mallory just wishes none of this had happened, but to escape the memories of Brian and the glares from people in her town she agrees to go.

Since Brian’s death Mallory has been losing her mind, she’s hearing things, things that she shouldn’t be. When a student at Monroe is murdered, everyone looks to Mallory. Now Mallory must find out what is going on at Monroe to clear her name, or possibly find out that the monster has been her all along.

Megan Miranda has done it again! Being a huge fan of Megan Miranda’s book Fracture I was immensely excited to pick up her novel Hysteria. While Hysteria didn’t quite live up to the expectations Fracture had set for it, it was still an enjoyable read that was well worth the hours I invested into it! The problems I had while reading Hysteria were how unlikable most of the characters were (including the main character Mallory) and how some moments throughout Hysteria felt very repetitive. Besides those two flaws, Hysteria was a great creepy, eerie, roller coaster of a read packed with plenty of mystery!

Now while most of the time I did not enjoy Mallory as a character, she was still so interesting to read from! I couldn’t imagine what she was going through, she couldn’t remember the night she killed Brian, most people in her town hate her now, her own mother is scared of her (mother hides the knife block), she’s being sent to private school, there was just so much going on in her life! There was some parts where I felt bad for Mallory, but I constantly felt conflicted whenever I felt bad for her. She killed someone, and even if the court says it was self-defense, the fact that Mallory herself worries she is guilty makes it hard as a reader to feel bad for her. I have never read a book that made me question how I feel about the main character so much, and that made this all the more of an enjoyable read. In this case the character that will steal the readers heart is most likely going to be Reid, Mallory’s love interest at Monroe, he is such a caring and helpful character that it was hard not to fall in love with him!

Overall if you’re looking for a YA rad that gives you chills, has a great mystery, and plenty of twists and turns, then I highly recommend picking up Hysteria by Megan Miranda.