How We Became Wicked
By Alexander Yates
Atheneum
July 23^rd, 2019
Grades 8 and above

Several decades have passed since the outbreak of a virus know as “wicked” which has devastated the world, leaving few survivors. Contracted from mosquito like bugs known as “singers”, the “wicked” turns people into homicidal maniacs. The town of Goldsport has built a glass dome around their community to prevent singers from entering and spreading the “wicked”. Astrid, the only person in the town who is immune to the singers, is desperate to leave Goldsport and go to Puffin Island where a mysterious lighthouse shines. Yet, every time she brings up the lighthouse or the island, the people in her town dismiss her, clearly trying to hide something. Meanwhile, on Puffin Island, Natalie and her family struggle to survive with their dwindling resources and constant vigilance of her “wicked” grandfather. When her mother gives birth, Natalie must go to the mainland by herself to try to get her sister “vexed” a type of immunization that would make her newborn sister immune to the “singers”. While on the mainland she meets other people for the first time in her life, people who seem a little too fascinated by her purple glowing “vexed” eyes. Told through intersecting adventures, both girls eventually learn that ordinary people can be just as wicked as the “wicked”; they can even be worse.
Yates creates a world that is constantly teetering on the brink of collapse, where the slightest push could destroy everything. This book grapples with questions of morality, asking who gets to decide who survives? Is survival worth letting others die? A gripping book from front to cover, this book is perfect for the spooky season.