From the moment I saw the cover on Christina’s Cover Snark feature, Hysteria by Megan Miranda has had a place on my TBR. The cover is eerie and weird, and perfectly matches the material between the pages.

However engaging and creepy this was though, Hysteria was wholly forgettable. I’ve found in my extensive reading of young adult thrillers, that this seems to be the case. There is much for plot development, plenty of high-intensity, spine-tingling scenes, but not a lot of character development. While it’s true that the characters were heartwarming and they go through their own arcs, I never felt like they were totally real people, but instead they were just playing the parts needed to further the story along.

Hysteria starts out the summer before Mallory’s junior year, after she stabbed her boyfriend Brian to death. Her family is in pieces, her best friend is barred from seeing her, and Mallory can’t shake the horrible feeling that Brian is following her around. She hears his heartbeat at night, hears his voice calling out her name, can feel him in the air. So when he parents send her off to boarding school in New England, she is convinced that the nightmare will end, though she’s reluctant to let go of her best friend Chloe.

Mallory was an interesting character. She was really, really paranoid and I couldn’t quite tell what was really happening with her, or what she made up in her head. She projected two very different sides to her at the same time – internally she felt that was meek and boring, but really she ended up being bold and pretty bad ass most of the time. It was understandable that she would let herself succumb to her guilt and nightmares and paranoia, especially when a student at her new school winds up dead. But most times I felt like she was a very active protagonist, not someone who just let things happen to her.

There are some great themes of betrayal, loyalty, friendship, and forgiveness in this book. Reid, Mallory’s love interest, lost his dad not too long before the book starts, and has his own unfinished business with Mallory that he’d like to take care of. Of course, there is the hive mentality of the students at Mallory’s new school, who will do whatever it takes to protect their own. Finally, there is Mallory’s parents, who have had to learn to deal with what happened to Mallory, and try to protect her afterward.

I loved Chloe, Mallory’s best friend. A lot of times, authors will just tell you how close two characters are, but I felt that Miranda really showed us their history. With all the flashbacks in the novel, you can easily see a picture of how much the two girls understood each other. I loved their banter, and I absolutely loved Chloe’s loyalty. The best part was that this was a true friendship, not a frienemies type of relationship where the girls harbor secret disdain and jealousy.

Hysteria was a fun, quick read. There are two mysteries going on at the same time, and I’m sure it will keep the book glued in your hands until you sort it all out. The creepiness will insure a sleepless night, and when you finally get to the end, you just might shed a tear or two. There were some problems in the characterization, and the book could have been a little bit better-written. But in all, I felt my time reading it was time well spent.