Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young

Girls with Sharp Sticks takes place at Innovations Academy, a private high school where the students, all girls, are trained to be perfect, beautiful, obedient, and to defer to men. If they “act out” they know that they will receive impulse control therapy, and that will fix them. 

Philomena is a student at Innovations Academy. She is well-adjusted, loves her friends, and trusts in the academy’s mission. But after a field trip where she ends up with an injury at the hand of the students’ Guardian, she starts to question whether the academy’s mission is really the right thing. Mena starts to notice strange, scary, things about her school. She starts to notice how important it is to the men running the place that women be controlled. She starts to notice that she hasn’t been able to get in touch with her parents since starting at Innovations Academy. 

As she and her friends start to put pieces of the truth together, life at the academy becomes more and more dangerous. But Mena is starting to realize just how dangerous her school has been all along. 

This book was well-written and timely. On Goodreads, the description of this book compares it to The Handmaid’s Tale, but it also includes some freaky sci-fi twists that you might not see coming. I definitely recommend this for anyone who is interested! 

Darcy Lepore

Library Director

Available on Libby in eBook and audio book format.