From Alexander Yates’ How We Became Wicked.
A horrible pandemic has stretched across the world; mosquito-like bugs called Singers descended and infected most of the world with an uncontrollable, murderous rage (infected are known as Wicked). Astrid lives in Goldsport, a protected-by-glass community filled with once-wealthy investors who sealed themselves off from the world decades ago. A failed immunization procedure called the Vex, left only Astrid and her best friend/ex-boyfriend Hank, who was too weak for the procedure, the only people under the age of 50 in Goldsport. When the old lighthouse on nearby Puffin Island turns on, Astrid is desperate for answers from the other True (un-infected, but not immune) members of Goldsport. Everyone claims it must be the result of a generator glitch since the island is uninhabited, but their refusal to discuss it further pushes Astrid and Hank to search for the truth on their own. Natalie, a Vexed teen, lives on Puffin Island with her pregnant mother and Wicked grandfather (who they keep locked in the ancient, defunct lighthouse); all her life, Natalie has been told that the people of Goldsport across the water were Wicked, so her family lived in safe solitude. Recently, everything has gone wrong for Natalie; her father has abandoned the family, her grandfather figured out how to turn on the lighthouse, and an injury makes her the only one available to take her newborn sister to the mainland for the Vex. Both Vexed girls discover that their lives are connected in life-or-death ways that they could never have imagined.
Yates’ novel is a captivating page-turner that is a truly enjoyable read with a dystopian story line with slight moments of horror. The narration is carried first by Astrid and then Natalie to create a story filled with action, mystery, and lots of twists, but doesn’t give anything away too soon. How We Became Wicked is a fast, genuinely enjoyable book that holds the reader’s attention until the very end.
First Sentence of a New World 
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