Synopsis via Goodreads:
Wicked Girls is a fictionalized account of the Salem witch trials based on the real historical characters, told from the perspective of three young women living in Salem in 1692—Mercy Lewis, Margaret Walcott, and Ann Putnam Jr.
When Ann’s father suggests that a spate of illnesses within the village is the result of witchcraft, Ann sees an opportunity and starts manifesting the symptoms of affliction. Ann looks up to Mercy, the beautiful servant in her parents' house. She shows Mercy the power that a young girl is capable of in a time when women were completely powerless. Mercy, who suffered abuse at the hands of past masters, seizes her only chance at safety. And Ann’s cousin Margaret, anxious to win the attention of a boy in her sights, follows suit. As the accusations mount against men and women in the community, the girls start to see the deadly ramifications of their actions. Should they finally tell the truth? Or is it too late to save this small New England town?
I had no preconceived notions about this books before I started it because I had never even heard of it before. Buuuut the Salem witch trials have always fascinated me so I thought, "What the poop! I'll give it a try!"
I'm very on the fence with this one. I actually loved the story itself because it takes a piece of American history and fictionalizes it in a way that's exciting and thought provoking. Had I only been judging the book based on the story, I would probably have given it 4/5 bones.
Unfortunately, it was the style in which the book was written that really threw me off and made me enjoy it less. First of all, the whole thing is written in free verse poetry. There is nothing wrong with poetry in a book, but only when it adds something to the story which in this case it did not. I stumbled across the same issue with Sold and I just can't understand why these authors choose to write like this. Ellen Hopkins writes her novels in free verse, but she always manages to make the story better by doing so by making hidden messages and alternate meanings with her words. These other books are free verse fails. The second thing that bothered me about the author's writing was the fact that she wrote the story from the perspective of 3 of the "afflicted" girls. I have nothing against books told by multiple perspectives, but I'm going to go ahead and compare this book to some of Ellen Hopkins's work again. Hopkins has a few books that are told from multiple points of view (Tricks, Fallout, Identical) and they're all great for two reasons: 1. the speakers take turns in an orderly fashion (speaker 1, speaker 2, speaker 3, speaker 1, speaker 2, speaker 3) and 2. the multiple points of view make sense and add more to the story. Wicked Girls did not do either of these. The order of the speakers was totally random, so it took me a long time to figure out who was who in the story. Mercy was the only character that I really liked and it would have been much nicer to see the entire story told from only her point of view. The only parts I enjoyed reading from Margaret's point of view were those about Isaac and I didn't really care about Ann at all. So yeah. FAIL.
Even though I had to minus one bone for writing style, I still really liked this book and recommend it. I respect Hemphill for writing this novel because she clearly did a lot of research for it and I absolutely love that she adds notes in the back about the real people that the characters were based on. Props!
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