A brilliant and powerful YA novel that every teenage girl needs to read.
'Anna Clark is the new girl in a Scottish school who has fled with her mother from a dark past. Finding it difficult to make new friends, she dives head first into a school history project, and focuses on a young woman who was accused of witchcraft for bearing a bastard child. When Anna's past comes back to haunt her at her new school, the treatment of the young woman accused of witchcraft feels very close to home, and makes Anna all the more determined to figure out what happened to her, and tell her story'
I wasn't sure what to expect when I first went into this novel, having never heard of the author before, and the blurb not really giving too much away.
It is one of the most powerful and truthful YA novels I have read in a while.
Anna's character, along with a few others within the school, suffer slut-shaming, victim blaming, bullying and revenge porn. The novel highlights the reality of social media for young girls, and what often happens to them and how they are frequently the blamed party.
Couple that with the strong and harrowing story of Maggie, the young girl that Anna decides to study for her history project, it creates a link between how the treatment of young women in the past is not far from the truth of today.
Without giving anything else away, the ending for Anna almost had me in tears.
Laura Bates has created a dynamic and influential book that I would highly recommend any teenage girl reads. It may just help them navigate through their school years.
5/5 stars
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