Don't Breathe a Word
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3.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
"A fast-paced, exhilarating story about a boarding school shrouded in secrecy and the girl who will do anything to right the institution's wrongs." —Jessica Goodman, Indiebound bestselling author of They Wish They Were Us
Critically acclaimed author Jordyn Taylor weaves an addictive thriller perfect for fans of Truly Devious.
Eva has never felt like she belonged . . . not in her own family or with her friends in New York City, and certainly not at a fancy boarding school like Hardwick Preparatory Academy. So, when she is invited to join the Fives, an elite secret society, she jumps at the opportunity to finally be a part of something.
But what if the Fives are about more than just having the best parties and receiving special privileges from the school? What if they are also responsible for keeping some of Hardwick’s biggest secrets buried?
1962:
There is only one reason why Connie would volunteer to be one of the six students to participate in testing Hardwick’s nuclear fallout shelter: Craig Allenby. While the thought of nuclear war sends her into a panic, she can’t pass up the opportunity to spend four days locked in with the school’s golden boy.
However, Connie and the other students quickly discover that there is more to this “test” than they previously thought. As they are forced to follow an escalating series of commands, Connie realizes that one wrong move could have dangerous consequences.
Separated by sixty years, Eva and Connie’s stories become inextricably intertwined as Eva unravels the mystery of how six students went into the fallout shelter all those years ago . . . but only five came out.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With its boarding school setting and intertwined pair of timelines, this solid novel by Taylor (The Paper Girl of Paris) calls to mind the Truly Devious series. The narrator of the present-day thread is Manhattanite Eva, who recently started as a junior at Upstate New York's tony Hardwick Preparatory Academy. Eager to make friends, Eva is thrilled when she's tapped to join the Fives, a secret society, and vows to do what it takes to become a part of the glamorous crowd. Back in 1962, timid Connie, 16, is persuaded to join an experiment dreamed up by Hardwick's charismatic new faculty member, Mr. Kraus. To test a program that Mr. Kraus says will prepare people for the reality of life after a nuclear attack, Connie and five other students, including her crush Craig, spend four days of spring break locked in the school's fallout shelter. Through their chatty first-person narratives, Eva and Connie, both white, neatly convey their contrasting personalities and eras while revealing their growing uneasiness with their respective situations. As the novel's pace accelerates, ratcheting up the tension, the connections between the two girls' stories become ever clearer. A persuasive argument for the virtues of questioning groupthink and looking beyond glittering surfaces. Ages 13–up.
