Don’t Even Think About It is about a group of teens all in the same home room in the Tribeca area of New York. Things seem to be normal – that is until they were due to get their flu shots from the school nurse. Starting that afternoon, the kids start hearing other kids in their classes talking – but their mouths aren’t moving. How can that be? It turns out that almost all of the kids who got the flu shot now seem to have developed ESP and can hear everyone around them’s thoughts! Slowly, all the kids who get the shot begin to gain this skill and they make a deal not to let anyone know. Now they can hear what their boyfriend or crushes are thinking about and even what the smartest kids in class are thinking to themselves during the next test.
The longer they are dealing with this skill, the more they are learning how to control it. If people are in between them they can’t hear people. If they close their eyes, they can’t hear it. Everything seems to revolve around their eyes – which have begun turning from their normal shades of browns and blues to a lilac color.
Eventually, those that administered the shot have caught on and come to the school to discuss an antidote with the students and their parents. They will get a settlement and the antidote and hopefully everything will go back to normal. But do they really want that? The ESP has made kids who otherwise would not be hanging out together bond and has brought them all together in ways that nothing else could have. Do they want to lose that and go back to being normal?
One of the smartest girls in the school, Pi, decides that she doesn’t want the antidote and wants to be a guinea pig for research on the effects of the flu shot. She seems to convince the agents at the school to go along with the plan and use her for their research. Meanwhile, the other kids are thinking that they don’t want to get the antidote shot either.
Will they go through with not getting the antidote? Will they did if they don’t? You’ll just have to read Don’t Even Think About It to see what happens.
This is a Young Adult novel, takes place in a high school and revolves around high school themes – boyfriends/girlfriends, cheating, crushes and all that goes along with being in high school. It was a quick and easier read, but quite enjoyable. Not something that I ever thought about happening but was certainly fun to ponder for the few hours I spent reading the book.
About the Book
Secrets. Scandals. ESP. A terrific and sexy new novel about a group of Tribeca teens from Sarah Mlynowski that will immediately appeal to fans of realistic fiction as well as readers who enjoy a little magic.
We weren’t always like this. We used to be average New York City high school sophomores. Until our homeroom went for flu shots. We were prepared for some side effects. Maybe a headache. Maybe a sore arm. We definitely didn’t expect to get telepathic powers. But suddenly we could hear what everyone was thinking. Our friends. Our parents. Our crushes. Now we all know that Tess is in love with her best friend, Teddy. That Mackenzie cheated on Cooper. That, um, Nurse Carmichael used to be a stripper.
Since we’ve kept our freakish skill a secret, we can sit next to the class brainiac and ace our tests. We can dump our boyfriends right before they dump us. We know what our friends really think of our jeans, our breath, our new bangs. We always know what’s coming. Some of us will thrive. Some of us will crack. None of us will ever be the same.
So stop obsessing about your ex. We’re always listening.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARAH MLYNOWSKI is the author of the Magic in Manhattan and Whatever After series, as well as Gimme a Call, Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn’t Have), Milkrun, and more. Her books have been translated into twenty-two languages and Bras & Broomsticks was optioned to Hollywood. Sarah was born in Montreal but lives and writes in New York City. Visit her at sarahm.com, like her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter at @sarahmlynowski.