and then we screamed by Holly Bourne

Everything was perfect in the small town of Maple Lakes...until the cheerleaders started screaming.

Clover wishes something would happen in her boring high school - so she can spend more time with her crush Brody, covering it for the school newspaper. But she never wished for this...

When cheerleader Abigail starts screaming in the middle of an exam, people laugh. But as more girls start breaking into uncontrollable screaming fits, it's clear something is seriously wrong. The authorities don't have a clue what's happening - so it's up to Clover and Brody to investigate. What they discover is a darkness beneath the perfect veneer of Maple Lakes - and it is spreading fast.

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Holly Bourne has built a reputation for writing about girls who are angry for very good reasons. In And Then We Screamed, she takes the unexplained outbreaks that have historically affected groups of women and asks a terrifying question: what happens when nobody understands what's happening - but everyone still wants someone to blame?

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📚 Pre-Reading Thoughts

Holly Bourne's books often explore the ways society responds to teenage girls, especially when those girls refuse to quietly accept what's happening around them. I was intrigued to see how she would approach a story built around such a strange and unsettling phenomenon.

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📖 Post-Reading

As I thought...

• This is a difficult book to discuss without giving too much away, because the reason behind the screaming is central to the story. What I can say is that Bourne uses the mystery to explore much bigger questions about fear, belief and power.
• The historical inspiration is fascinating, particularly the strange "plagues" and unexplained events that have appeared throughout history. Bourne captures the terror of living through something you cannot understand.
• The reactions around the girls are just as important as the screaming itself. The novel explores how quickly communities can move from concern to suspicion when faced with something they cannot explain.

It surprised me by...

• How much space it gives the uncertainty. This is not a fast-paced thriller where every chapter brings a new revelation; it is a slower, more unsettling examination of what it feels like when the world stops making sense.
• How much anger sits beneath the story. Holly Bourne is clearly furious about the ways women's experiences have historically been dismissed, and that frustration gives the book its power.

This is a challenging read, but a worthwhile one. In a perfect world, this would be the kind of novel discussed in classrooms - not just because of the story itself, but because of the conversations it encourages about history, society and whose voices we choose to believe.

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🌈 Vibe Check

• Colour Palette: storm clouds, silver grey, frost white
• Soundtrack: footsteps in an empty corridor, the hum of fluorescent lights, silence before a storm
• Season: winter
• Mood: unsettling, thoughtful, quietly furious
• Scent: cold air, old books, rain on pavement

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🃏 Tarot Pull

The Moon

The Moon represents uncertainty, hidden truths and the fear of what we cannot yet understand. It asks us to trust intuition when the world around us is offering incomplete answers - and reminds us that things hidden in darkness still exist.