boarding school Archives

Yzabel / June 3, 2019

Review: The Broken Girls

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James
My rating: [usr 2]

Blurb:

Vermont, 1950. There’s a place for the girls whom no one wants–the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the too smart for their own good. It’s called Idlewild Hall. And in the small town where it’s located, there are rumors that the boarding school is haunted. Four roommates bond over their whispered fears, their budding friendship blossoming–until one of them mysteriously disappears. . . .

Vermont, 2014. As much as she’s tried, journalist Fiona Sheridan cannot stop revisiting the events surrounding her older sister’s death. Twenty years ago, her body was found lying in the overgrown fields near the ruins of Idlewild Hall. And though her sister’s boyfriend was tried and convicted of murder, Fiona can’t shake the suspicion that something was never right about the case.

When Fiona discovers that Idlewild Hall is being restored by an anonymous benefactor, she decides to write a story about it. But a shocking discovery during the renovations will link the loss of her sister to secrets that were meant to stay hidden in the past–and a voice that won’t be silenced. . . .

Review:

[I originally got a copy through Edelweiss.]

“The Broken Girls” intertwines two storylines: that of four students at Idlewild Hall in 1950, and that, in 2014, of Fiona Sheridan, a journalist whose elder sister was found murdered twenty years ago—at Idlewild. As Fiona investigates the family who’s just bought the old school to refurbish it, haunted by what happened to her sister, the discovery of yet another body on these ground sends her into looking more and more into the past, and to unveil what happened to the girls.

The story was relatively gripping, but the 1950 part interested me much more, perhaps because reading about the girls and their friendship in a place where all the pupils were more or less rejected by their families: orphans with only remote relatives who didn’t want to bring them up, girls who witnessed something horrible, girls who were assaulted, or illegitimate daughters… Idlewild Hall had that reputation of “a school for girls who cause problems”, but a lot of those problems were the product of that time more than of the children themselves: people didn’t want to talk about the fruit of adultery, or about that girl who couldn’t speak after being traumatised, so they bundled them up to that boarding school to get rid of them. And through these different yet oddly similar stories, the bond that united the four friends developed into a really strong one, that was so easily felt throughout their chapters.

By contrast, Fiona’s story was more… conventional. A journalist with her relationships troubles, still trying to come up to grips with her sister’s murder, wanting to investigate the place of said murder, uncovering quite a few things that hadn’t been spoken of at the time… Not uninteresting per se, but not particularly exciting either.

In a way, I also felt that the 2014 arc tried to deal with too many things at the same time: was the murderer really the culprit, or was he set up; Deb’s murdered (almost every chapter); a ghost; corruption; the motives of the wealthy family who bought the Hall; tragic pasts dating back to World War II… Some of these weren’t fully exploited—the ghost subplot, for instance, felt like it was hovering between bona fide supernatural, and something with a completely mundane explanation, and in the end, the whole thing fell flat.

Conclusion: I would’ve liked this much more if it had been all about the girls in 1950, to be fair.

Yzabel / May 21, 2019

Review: Magic For Liars

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
My rating: [usr 3]

Blurb:

Ivy Gamble has never wanted to be magic. She is perfectly happy with her life—she has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. It’s a great life and she doesn’t wish she was like her estranged sister, the magically gifted professor Tabitha.

But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a faculty member at Tabitha’s private academy, the stalwart detective starts to lose herself in the case, the life she could have had, and the answer to the mystery that seems just out of her reach.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A mystery where Ivy, a private investigator, has to address a potential murder in a magic school, where her own twin sister Tabitha is a teacher—her sister, who was gifted with magic, while herself wasn’t. That’s a recipe for disaster, or at least, for tense relationships and/or resentment.

And I enjoyed, indeed, the out-of-balance relationship between the two sisters, based on a lot of unsaid things, feelings and resent left to simmer for years, with each contending with a difficult event in a way that made the other sister believe they didn’t care, or not so much. Well, it was especially imbalanced when Ivy was concerned, since she was the one at home when the said event occurred, and had to live through it with the feeling that Tabby was too busy with her studies. But this long-festering resentment also came hand in hand with a wistful, half-buried, never fully admitted, desire for magic as well: Ivy telling herself she’s fine as she is, that she doesn’t want magic, can never really hide the regret that magic separated her from her twin. A good chunk of the story deals with this complicated relationship, as well as with Ivy wondering “what if” (what if she had been magic, too?), and seeing herself as the woman she never was, and that she probably wouldn’t have minded being. Along with her investigation, this leads her to spin more and more lies: some appearing as necessary, to throw the potential culprit off-balance while Ivy is fishing for clues, and some that are, let’s say, less justified, if not by her feelings.

On the other hand, there were times when Ivy came off as wallowing in self-pity a little too much for my liking, and when she became unsympathetic rather than touching. So the character development and relationships were interesting in general, though tedious at those times I mentioned.

The magic itself is not all stars and sparkles, and this makes it more interesting than neat spells and wand-waving. First, it can be pretty gross. Healing spells, for instance, are gruesome and difficult, and only the best mages can attempt them without killing themselves or their patient. And there’s also something twisted and petty to the way some of the students use their magic—one of the things Ivy reflect upon: they could do so much with it… but they’re still teenagers wrapped in their own drama, and so use it in a very self-centred and sometimes mean way.

The mystery part was where I think the novel wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been. The crime itself is one of magic (not a spoiler—you see the discovery of the body in the first chapter), and this, of course, throws additional difficulty in the path of our investigator, since she’s not familiar with spells and with what mages can or can’t do. Which is partly why she needs to do so much fishing. Yet at the same time, I felt that it lacked tension, that Ivy wasn’t as threatened as she could have been. And the clues were either something she stumbled upon (so not exactly screaming “investigation” here), or so subtle that they were really difficult for a reader to spot. Not to mention some parts of the ending. Some things were left unfinished, and while I do enjoy an open ending, here something was missing—some closure when it came to certain characters and facts, who/which were in fact sort of… brushed aside as “that was bad and they did a bad thing and oh it’s the end, bye.”

Conclusion: 3 to 3.5 stars? I quite liked this novel, but it’s a like” and not a “love” here.

Yzabel / January 20, 2018

Review: Undercover Princess

Undercover Princess by Connie Glynn

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

When fairy tale obsessed Lottie Pumpkin starts at the infamous Rosewood Hall, she is not expecting to share a room with the Crown Princess of Maradova, Ellie Wolf. Due to a series of lies and coincidences, 14-year-old Lottie finds herself pretending to be the princess so that Ellie can live a more normal teenage life.

Lottie is thrust into the real world of royalty – a world filled with secrets, intrigue and betrayal. She must do everything she can to help Ellie keep her secret, but with school, the looming Maradovian ball and the mysterious new boy Jamie, she’ll soon discover that reality doesn’t always have the happily ever after you’d expect…

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

There were good ideas in there, and I was fairly thrilled at first at the setting and prospects (a boarding school in England, hidden royals that looked like they’d be badass, etc.), but I must say that in the end, even though I read the novel in a rather short time and it didn’t fall from my hands, it was all sort of bland.

The writing itself was clunky, and while it did have good parts (the descriptions of the school, for instance, made the latter easy to picture), it was more telling, not showing most of the time. I’m usually not too regarding on that, I tend to judge first on plot and characters, and then only on style, but here I found it disruptive. For instance, the relationship between Ellie and Lottie has a few moments that border on the ‘what the hell’ quality: I could sense they were supposed to hint at possible romantic involvement (or at an evolution in that direction later), but the way they were described, it felt completely awkward (and not ‘teenage-girls-discovering-love’ cute/awkward).

The characters were mostly, well, bland. I feel it was partly tied to another problem I’ll mention later, namely that things occur too fast, so we had quite a few characters introduced, but not developed. Some of their actions didn’t make sense either, starting with Princess Eleanor Wolfson whose name undercover gets to be… Ellie Wolf? I’m surprised she wasn’t found out from day one, to be honest. Or the head of the house who catches the girls sneaking out at night and punishes them by offering them a cup of tea (there was no particular reason for her to be lenient towards them at the time, and if that was meant to hint at a further plot point, then we never reached that point in the novel).

(On that subject, I did however like the Ellie/Lottie friendship in general. It started in a rocky way, that at first made me wonder how come they went from antipathy to friendship in five minutes; however, considering the first-impression antipathy was mostly based on misunderstanding and a bit of a housework matter, it’s not like it made for great enmity reasons either, so friendship stemming from the misunderstanding didn’t seem so silly in hindsight. For some reason, too, the girls kind of made me think of ‘Utena’—probably because of the setting, and because Ellie is boyish and sometimes described as a prince rather than a princess.)

The story, in my opinion, suffers from both a case of ‘nothing happens’ and ‘too many things happen’. It played with several different plot directions: boarding school life; undercover princess trying to keep her secret while another girl tries to divert all attention on her as the official princess; prince (and potential romantic interest) showing up; mysterious boy (and potential romantic interest in a totally different way) showing up; the girls who may or may not be romantically involved in the future; trying to find out who’s leaving threatening messages; Binah’s little enigma, and the way it ties into the school’s history, and will that ever play a part or not; Anastacia and the others, and who among them leaked the rumour; going to Maradova; the summer ball; the villains and their motivations. *If* more time had been spent on these subplots, with more character development, I believe the whole result would’ve been more exciting. Yet at the same time all this gets crammed into the novel, there’s no real sense of urgency either, except in the last few chapters. That was a weird dichotomy to contend with.

Conclusion: 1.5 stars. I’m honestly not sure if I’ll be interested in reading the second book. I did like the vibes between Lottie and Ellie, though.

Yzabel / September 12, 2016

Review: Smoke

Smoke by Dan Vyleta

My rating: [rating=1]

Blurb:

England. A century ago, give or take a few years.

An England where people who are wicked in thought or deed are marked by the Smoke that pours forth from their bodies, a sign of their fallen state. The aristocracy do not smoke, proof of their virtue and right to rule, while the lower classes are drenched in sin and soot. An England utterly strange and utterly real.

An elite boarding school where the sons of the wealthy are groomed to take power as their birthright. Teachers with mysterious ties to warring political factions at the highest levels of government. Three young people who learn everything they’ve been taught is a lie – knowledge that could cost them their lives. A grand estate where secrets lurk in attic rooms and hidden laboratories. A love triangle. A desperate chase. Revolutionaries and secret police. Religious fanatics and coldhearted scientists. Murder. A London filled with danger and wonder. A tortured relationship between a mother and a daughter, and a mother and a son. Unexpected villains and unexpected heroes. Cool reason versus passion. Rich versus poor. Right versus wrong, though which is which isn’t clear.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I really liked the premise: sin and violent emotions taking on shape and scent, through a strange smoke people let escape in spite of themselves, in an alternate Victorian setting where, much like in real Victorian England, the “lower classes” are considered as sinful, while the “upper classes” are supposed to be their betters—and what’s best here than -not- displaying the dreadful Smoke, right? However, ultimately I couldn’t care about the story at all, nor about the characters. I partly blame this on the rhythm, and partly on the choice of narrative tense and voices.

The first chapters, albeit a little slow, had the kind of atmosphere I hoped the whole novel would carry throughout, involving a private boarding school, creepy students, and masters entrenched within their stinky moral rectitude. Lovely, isn’t it? There is so much one can do with such a setting (can you tell I like boarding school settings?). There was so much promise to the strained relationship between Julius, the apparently perfect, almost angelic student who submits others to his own rule on top of the teachers’, a monster in elegant disguise, and Thomas, a murderer’s son, openly convinced that he’s a monster and will end up like his father.

Alas, after that, or more specifically about the part where the boys go visit London, things went downhill.

I can definitely say the narrative style didn’t convince me: a blend of a first and third person, but also of present and past tense. Unfortunately, first POV present is difficult to properly achieve, and third POV present is even more difficult… and it just didn’t work here, bringing a constant jarring note to the story. I spent more time being bothered about the tense shifts and sometimes confusing points of view, than really paying attention to what I was reading. Not to mention that some of those narrators weren’t so useful, being brought in for one scene, then never again—in other words, I never got to get a feeling for these characters, not enough to care about what happened to them. This extended to the actual main characters, who could have had an interesting dynamics as a twisted love triangle, united in sin and darkness as they were uncovering a plot that may or may not destroy England as they knew it.

Another really bothering thing was how the Smoke was everywhere, permeating every stratum of society, at the heart of the mystery… yet in the end, there was no clue as to -why- exactly it existed, what brought it out of humans. Something supernatural? Something physiological? Nada. And since there’s no indication whatsoever that there’ll be a second volume, for now it looks like we’ll never know. (Also, because the origins of Smoke, its nature, are involved in the plot our three “heroes” unveil, the absence of revelation and information is all the more annoying.)

It took me weeks to finish this novel, and to be honest, had I not felt like I owned a review for NetGalley, I’d have DNFed it.

Yzabel / August 29, 2016

Review: The Glittering Court

The Glittering Court by Richelle Mead

My rating: [rating=1]

Blurb:

Big and sweeping, spanning from the refined palaces of Osfrid to the gold dust and untamed forests of Adoria, “The Glittering Court” tells the story of Adelaide, an Osfridian countess who poses as her servant to escape an arranged marriage and start a new life in Adoria, the New World. But to do that, she must join the Glittering Court.

Both a school and a business venture, the Glittering Court is designed to transform impoverished girls into upper-class ladies who appear destined for powerful and wealthy marriages in the New World. Adelaide naturally excels in her training, and even makes a few friends: the fiery former laundress Tamsin and the beautiful Sirminican refugee Mira. She manages to keep her true identity hidden from all but one: the intriguing Cedric Thorn, son of the wealthy proprietor of the Glittering Court.

When Adelaide discovers that Cedric is hiding a dangerous secret of his own, together they hatch a scheme to make the best of Adelaide’s deception. Complications soon arise—first as they cross the treacherous seas from Osfrid to Adoria, and then when Adelaide catches the attention of a powerful governor.

But no complication will prove quite as daunting as the potent attraction simmering between Adelaide and Cedric. An attraction that, if acted on, would scandalize the Glittering Court and make them both outcasts in wild, vastly uncharted lands…

Review:

(I got a copy through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.)

This one… Well. Part of the plot was interesting, in that it offered an opening on the stories of three young women who may or may not be able to create a life for themselves… yet other plot points were a bit dumb, to say the least. Or worse.

First, the good: in spite of the whole Glittering Court premise (taking common-born girls and educating them to make them noble-looking wife material), the three main girl characters had motivations of their own to join that “school”. For Mira the refugee, without many prospects in Osfrid, joining the ‘Court is a way to try and make another kind of life for herself: she’s getting an education, she’s leaving for the “New World”, and even though it’s basically to snatch a husband, she hopes she’ll find another opportunity during that time she’s bought for herself. For Tamsin, it’s also an opportunity, one to rise in a world that otherwise will keep her poor at beast, and possibly forced to do darker deeds at worst (it’s never clearly said—I suppose it will be revealed in book 3—but I’m positive she’d under some kind of threat, and being the best student, getting the best husband in the lot, is the only solution for her to, paradoxically, free herself). For “Adelaide”, it’s about reaching for the unknown, because the known is going to be a prison of its own, and she’s so trapped she’s ready to do anything to escape, including something dumb (more about this below).

There’s also a whole Frontier/New World dynamic that goes past the initial, slightly insipid “let’s learn fashion and manners and wear nice dresses” idea. I probably wouldn’t have lasted through 400 pages of seeing the girls learn to act like proper ladies—or if it had been about that, I would’ve needed much more intrigue thrown in the middle to keep myself busy—so the parts where the girls are in the New World

On the downside… Adelaide’s motives were incredibly dumb and made no sense: facing the prospect of an arranged marriage with an insufferable man and his over-controlling grandmother, she uses the Court as an opportunity to run away… yet the whole thing is dumb because the Court is precisely what she tries to avoid, with perhaps a few more potential choices for a future husband, but that’s all. Basically, it’s still about getting married (sold), and going through the motions to attract a man’s (buyer’s) eye, and without much choice in the end, because if she doesn’t fetch enough of a price, or if she refuses to marry, she has to work (in bad conditions) to buy back her contract. I think I would’ve enjoyed her “deciding to create her own fate” idea much, much better if she had joined a band of highwaymen, or whatever else. Like marrying the first guy, taking his money, then arranging for the controlling grandma to fall down the stairs. For instance.

Unsurprisingly, I was also much unfazed when it came to the romance. The love interest is a nice guy all around, and a decent person, and definitely not the worst choice of partner, for sure. However, he remained bland, without much personality—and that’s really too bad, since it enforces the stereotype that “nice guys aren’t interesting”, which may become in turn “the only good romance must be with a bad guy”. (Not necessarily what happens in this novel, it’s just the way I perceived it: if the good guys aren’t made interesting enough, people are going to look to the less savory ones… won’t they?)

I feel that overall, this “dull” side to the main male character also expanded to the story as a whole. There are quite a few things happening, sea storms, rumours of pirates, a scheming noble, adventure/being pioneers in a faraway colony, some revenge plot (that everybody save for the MCs would’ve seen coming through the thickest fog on the darkest night ever), and yet I was never excited by what the girls went through. I still don’t understand how it came that events sometimes piled upon each other too quickly, to the point of being wrapped up a little too neatly at the end through a series of coincidences, making it look like so much was happening… and at the same time remained dull and without much of an actual plot. And hinting all the way at the two other girls’ secrets, and never revealing what they are. Argh.

The setting didn’t help: basically a Regency/Victorian Europe (=Osfrid) vs. a New World (=Adoria) with budding colonies, including “Alanzan heretics” looking for a place to worship in peace (=Protestants/Puritans), only the “natives” aren’t Native Americans but some sort of Celt-looking people. Anyway, it was much too close to our world’s history to be really original, and not very developed, resting on this “closeness”, therefore adding to the feeling of a cardboard backdrop. Moreover, it was problematic when it comes to the whole colonisation/”civilised men vs. savages” aspect, because it doesn’t stray from any colonial vision, first by sort of trying to make the whole Glittering Court look glamorous when it’s not (it’s not slavery, granted, but still a form of indenture with selling oneself to a man the only outcome), then by demeaning the “natives”. I kept hoping that there’d be some different undertones here, something to undermine the racist outlook on this, yet if there was, I couldn’t feel it.

So. Meh. 1.5 stars.

Yzabel / October 6, 2015

Review: The Dead House

The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

Three students: dead.
Carly Johnson: vanished without a trace.

Two decades have passed since an inferno swept through Elmbridge High, claiming the lives of three teenagers and causing one student, Carly Johnson, to disappear. The main suspect: Kaitlyn, “the girl of nowhere.”

Kaitlyn’s diary, discovered in the ruins of Elmbridge High, reveals the thoughts of a disturbed mind. Its charred pages tell a sinister version of events that took place that tragic night, and the girl of nowhere is caught in the center of it all. But many claim Kaitlyn doesn’t exist, and in a way, she doesn’t – because she is the alter ego of Carly Johnson.

Carly gets the day. Kaitlyn has the night. It’s during the night that a mystery surrounding the Dead House unravels and a dark, twisted magic ruins the lives of each student that dares touch it.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

The kind of format I like (and I probably missed on a lot more, considering I had a digital copy, not a paper one), mixing extracts from diaries, interviews and camera clips, as well as a non-chronological narrative and an unreliable narrator.

The story mostly revolves around Carly and Kaitlyn, twin sisters of sorts, or perhaps not? They’re two minds in one body, and who can tell whether one is crazy and the other just a mere symptom, or whether they’re actually two souls who just happen to coexist in an unusual way—Carly during the day, and Kaitlyn at night? After their parents’ death, the “sisters” are sent to Elmbridge, a boarding school in Somerset, but their stay there is chaotic, as they’re regularly sent back to Claydon, a psychiatric facility for teens. Under the guidance of Dr. Lansing, Carly has to accept that Kaitlyn is only an alter, meant to hold the painful memory of the night when her family was torn asunder. And yet… Doesn’t Kaitlyn exist in her own way, too? Is she a construct, or a real person? Doesn’t her diary reflect how real she is, just as real as Carly?

“The Dead House” explores this idea, mainly from Kaitlyn’s point of view, but also through Naida’s camera footage and through the group of friends gathered around her: Naida, Carly’s best friend during daytime; Scott, Naida’s boyfriend; and Brett and Ari. Naida’s peculiar in her own way, in that she comes from a family of priests, brought up within the faith of “Mala”, an Scottish mix of traditional witchcraft and voodoo (it doesn’t actually exist, and was created specifically for this story). And she may be the only one to accept that Kaitlyn/Carly is something special, something unique.

However, there’s something rotten in the Dead House: the sisters grow estranged, pills may do more harm than good, the doctor may not be so competent as she thinks she is, and Kaitlyn’s losing herself more and more in the maze of her own mind. Fascinating elements here, that I really liked reading about. Creept imagery, too, even though I’ve read more gory and morbid.

I’m torn when it comes to other aspects of this book, though. First, the Mala part, which sometimes felt strange and… “not Scottish”? There was something unsettling about the names, whether the spirits’ or even the people’s (“Naida” and “Haji” definitely don’t sound Scottish, and their French family-name hints more at New Orleans/voodoo surroundings than British ones). It would also have been interesting to see a real set of beliefs used here, rather than an imaginary one.

Then the romance, which I didn’t particularly care about, as the story could likely have stood on its own just as well with pure friendship and similar relationships. (But I’m very nitpicky when it comes to romance, so don’t mind me here.) The love interests looked really flat compared to Kaitlyn. In fact, most characters seemed flat, including Carly. Perhaps more insights into her own diary, into the post-its the sisters left for each other, would have helped to get to know here better. As it was, I didn’t really care about her either.

I was also confused about the actual time when the story was set: the diary and footage were recovered more than 20 years later, yet there’s no real sense of “the future”. It could’ve been 2015, and it would’ve been just the same. As for the ending, it felt incomplete, and I couldn’t decide whether the supernatural element was a good thing, or if I would’ve enjoyed the novel more if it had been purely a matter of psychological disorders.

As it was, I did enjoy “The Dead House”, and I give it 3.5 stars out of 5. On the other hand, I can’t help but think that something was missing—perhaps several things, even.

Yzabel / February 1, 2015

Review: A Myth to the Night

A Myth to the Night: Parts I-V by Cora Choi

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Once home to the illustrious Order of the Crane — guardians of the world’s myths and legends — Stauros Island, now in the hands of the Order of the Shrike, is an elite university whose students are guaranteed positions of power upon graduating.

However, a dark curse hangs over the island: students are disappearing. The school officials declare it the work of a demon, and blame Hugh Fogg — a young monk of the Order of the Crane who died 400 years earlier.

Could the spirit of a young man who died in 1615 come back to haunt an island and terrorize its students? If so, for what purpose? A Myth to the Night is Hugh’s story and his struggle to see his mission complete.

Review:

(I got a copy from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

While this novel had its flaws, I nevertheless enjoyed it for some of the ideas it brought forth and for its half-dystopian, half-anachronistic atmosphere. The latter might be a deterrent to some, as it’s quite peculiar, but overall I liked it.

The story itself partly reads as a myth, with its cast of characters born from legends. After all the books about them were destroyed, they came to exist as “phantoms” on Stauros Island, striving to tell people at night about who they had been and what symbols and values they were meant to embody. The descriptions given of these people/heroes/creatures, as well as of their surroundings on the island, lent the novel quite a magical feeling.

I also liked the idea of an evil sect controlling the world through fear and systematic destruction of old tales and knowledge, so that people wouldn’t have anything to turn to, and would more easily allow themselves to be ruled. The sect’s role was a bit far-fetched and one-dimensional, in a “big villain” way, but on the other hand, it also had echoes of secret societies born from wealthy frats, or of a New World Order of some kind—people educated at Stauros are groomed to be the rich and powerful of this world, complete with signets revealing their belonging to the Order of the Shrike. This definitely wasn’t uninteresting.

On the downside, some parts were somewhat muddled and slow, and could lead to questioning the world-building if one thinks about it too much. Some aspects were clearly simplistic and/or too manichean or predictable. If you’re looking for solid world-building, these flaws will quickly become manifest. If you choose to read A Myth to the Night as a kind of myth itself, then it’s less of a problem.

Yzabel / July 31, 2014

Review: Deadly Little Sins

Deadly Little Sins: A Prep School Confidential Novel by Kara Taylor

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

It’s August and Anne is back in New York City for the summer, but she can’t escape the memories of the terrible things that happened at the Wheatley School last spring— and the possibility of being expelled looming over her. When an unexpected— and suspicious— turn of events gets Anne sent back to Wheatley, she’s determined to figure out what happened to her favorite teacher and only adult ally at the school: Ms. Cross.

After a shocking, gruesome murder with connections to the Wheatley School occurs, Anne is convinced there’s more to Ms. Cross’s sudden disappearance, and that her favorite teacher is in danger. But after an ugly breakup with Brent and a new, inexplicable distance between her and Anthony, Anne isn’t sure who she can trust. And even worse, Anne discovers evidence that someone at Wheatley is covering up what really happened to Ms. Cross— someone who will stop at nothing to keep Anne from learning the truth in this engrossing, unputdownable read.

Review:

(I got an ARC from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

Still a page-turner for me: there was something quite compelling to it no matter what. Unfortunately, I didn’t like it as much as I did the previous two books.

I felt Anne had lost some of her intensity, and that her needing to juggle with her school work, friends and investigation looked less like a conundrum, and more like her detaching herself from everything, not caring anymore. The daily scenes with friends, frenemies and people who didn’t like her at school were mostly gone. Her “love life” made me wonder what the point to the whole (slight) triangle was, after all. Of course her character couldn’t get unscathed from the previous series of events, but this wasn’t the Anne I knew and had grown to love.

The mystery this time also seemed less satisfying, perhaps because it was less tied to Wheatley’s daily life and occurrences than those in the other books? It answered some questions, which isn’t bad, yet it also left a few other strings hanging. For instance, what about Alexis’s part in here, what happened to her afterwards? She’s one of those unpleasant characters with a past that explains some of their reactions and attitude problems, and it would’ve been interesting to see her part of the story given an ending as well. However, it’s like her arc was just dropped and never picked up again. Same with Anthony’s[Anthony’s (hide spoiler)], who barely appears anyway. And some characters were clearly introduced for the sake of being plot devices, like the rio of boys and their freshman girl target. This could have developed into more, yet never did.

Speaking of the ending, the big reveal and how it unfolded was sort of rushed; and what happened after, the offer made to Ann, was rather unrealistic. It hints at a potential new series, one that would happen on a whole other level, but I’m not sure if I’d appreciate that or not. Part of my interest for the series was the boarding school setting, so with this potentially removed, I don’t know…

I’m torn, really. I liked this series a lot, and I sort of liked this third installment as well, but it left me terribly unsatisfied, compared to the others, and way too flat. 2 to 2.5 stars here.

Yzabel / June 13, 2014

Review: Crushed (Soul Eaters 2)

Crushed by Eliza Crewe

My rating: [rating=5]

Summary:

Meda Melange has officially hung up her monstrous mantle and planted her feet firmly on the holy and righteous path of a Crusader-in-training. Or, at least, she’s willing to give it a shot. It helps that the Crusaders are the only thing standing between her and the demon hordes who want her dead.

The problem is, the only people less convinced than Meda of her new-found role as Good Girl are the very Crusaders she’s trying to join. So when a devilishly handsome half-demon boy offers escape, how’s a girl supposed to say “no?”

After all, everyone knows a good girl’s greatest weakness is a bad boy.

Review:

(I received an ARC of this novel through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

4.5 stars, rounded to 5 because this book did something other books seldom do: eliciting feelings in me.

You see, I’m a cold-hearted person. Not as in cruel and mean, but as in, someone who very seldom cries, who’s seldom moved by emotional scenes, and so on. The few things that make me reach such a state aren’t the usual kind of triggers; I don’t shed tears over characters dying, romantic scenes, happy-ever-after moments. In fact, it’s so random I couldn’t even explain what may or may not trigger a reaction, whatever reaction, in me.

Meda’s voice does. I don’t know how, I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s her acceptance that she’s bad, that something in her is utterly rotten (she’s half-demon, after all). Perhaps it’s the fact she doesn’t delude herself when it comes to being liked by others, or to the guy she may or may not fall in love with. Perhaps it’s how she feels she tries hard, but realises in the end that she should also have tried to understand others. She’s not perfect, she knows it, she’s not trying to be—just being “good enough” would already be a great step, but can someone who needs to ear souls ever be “good enough”? Her eating the souls of bad guys only could seem a rationalisation… or simply a fact: when the only other solution is starving yourself, how many of us would actually be “good enough” to do that? So she goes after bad guys—psychopathic killers, child molesters—and eat their souls, because it’s the least of two evils, yet while she jokes about being a super heroine, going about vigilante business, she still acknowledges that she’s part monster, and will always be.

She’s not perfect. She makes mistakes. She misunderstands people, people misunderstand her. But she learns. She accepts facts in the end, seeing them for what they were, for something she failed to notice. She owns up to her mistakes, tries to correct them, takes responsibility for her actions. And she’s also angry and frustrated, so much that I could feel her anger poring through the pages. I especially liked that contrary to a lot of teens in YA fiction, her reasons were both selfish (it was about “me, me, me” at first, in that she saw things from her side of the barrier only) and understandable: the bullying, people automatically disliking her at school because she’s a half-demon, the adults seemingly turning a blind eye on it, humiliating punishments that only furthered the bullying… She was under scrutiny because of her nature, but it felt as if she was expected to do better than any other “good” person in the world, while being set up for failure. (I don’t know, but if someone’s half-demon, expecting them to be Mother Teresa is kind of asking for them to fail, isn’t it?) Meda was self-centered and didn’t understand Jo’s attempts at warning her, at protecting her; however, I think a lot of people would’ve felt the same in her situation. And later, when she discovers the true reasons behind what happened, she accepts them, accepts that she has to understand.

Meda’s friendship with Jo: another beautiful thing in this story. They both have their own very special personalities, they’ve been through fire together, they don’t entirely trust each other, and paradoxically, the latter grounds their relationship into something deeper, stronger, because it holds one important promise: the day real trust is born, is the day their friendship knows no bounds. In the meantime, they’re kidn of circling each other, watching each other. It’s not a girly kind of friendship. They don’t bond over boys, over one common interest that may or may not last. But it runs deep, to the point of self-sacrifice… not only on Jo’s part (knowing her character, that must’ve been one hard thing to do for Jo, by the way).

And when a half-demon is led to self-sacrifice, this also tells you something about her, about whether her nature binds her so much, whether Armand is right in telling her Hell is the only place for her… or not. Meda knowing she’s a monster, and not refuting it, Meda teetering on the brink of that one important decision (join the demons or remain faithful to the Crusaders, even though they want her dead), are, in my opinion, what could make her achieve her own “goodness”: not a saintly one, but one that defies her origins.

Love interest: there is one, but not too much. Here, we don’t go through the “redeem the bad boy” trope, or starry-eyed love. While Meda and Armand are clearly attracted to each other, they also know that sooner or later, they may stand on different sides. Meda is aware she may have to kill him someday; indeed, no delusions here, and no glorious promises of Love Eternal either. They both hang out together for their own selfish reasons, they both say it openly, they both accept it in each other. It’s a really nice break from the usual teen romance I see in YA books nowadays.

Also, they kill. They go through with their murders, they don’t bail out at the last moment. Another nice break from all the “assassins who fail to kill” stories.

The Crusaders: horrible in many ways, justified in others. What they did to Meda, refusing to give her a say when it was time to test one specific kind of magic on her, was shocking; however, when Meda had a choice, the person who seemed so bad, so cruel at first turned out to be pretty decent—and he wasn’t the only one. It’s never sp black and white with them as you think it is.

The one qualm I have with this book is that it felt slow in the beginning, especially compared to the first novel in the series. Meda’s voice and what I could sense between the lines prevented this from being too much of a problem, but I was still glad when the pace picked up.

Yzabel / May 3, 2014

Review: Prep School Confidential

Prep School Confidential by Kara Taylor

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

In this breathtaking debut that reads like Gossip Girl crossed with Twin Peaks, a Queen Bee at a blue-blooded New England prep school stumbles into a murder mystery.

Anne Dowling practically runs her exclusive academy on New York’s Upper East Side—that is, until she accidentally burns part of it down and gets sent to a prestigious boarding school outside of Boston. Determined to make it back to New York, Anne could care less about making friends at the preppy Wheatley School. That is, until her roommate Isabella’s body is found in the woods behind the school.

When everyone else is oddly silent, Anne becomes determined to uncover the truth no matter how many rules she has to break to do it. With the help of Isabella’s twin brother Anthony, and a cute classmate named Brent, Anne discovers that Isabella wasn’t quite the innocent nerdy girl she pretended to be. But someone will do anything to stop Anne’s snooping in this fast-paced, unputdownable read—even if it means framing her for Isabella’s murder.

Review:

A fast and fun read, and also one that kept me on the edge of my seat—the mystery part was well-done in my opinion, enough that I had my suspicions about a potential culprit, but without seeing it coming too easily.

I have a soft spot for boarding schools. I don’t know why. Perhaps because I’ve always wondered in hindsight if I wouldn’t have felt better in such a school as a teen? (Not necessarily a posh prep school. Just a school where I could be away from my family and experience things in a different way. As a university student, anyway, I was the kind of person who loved eating breakfast with others, spending time in each other’s rooms, and various dorm activities.) So, boarding schools often tend to grab my interest for their closed community aspect, and for the closed setting they provide, too. You can’t just walk away and ignore whatever problem happens there: you have to face it, whether the problem is gossip or a murder.

I didn’t really like Anne in the very first chapters. She came off as a snotty brat, the kind of girl who knew she’d get away with everything just by batting her eyelashes, twirling a lock of hair between her fingers, and by basically “being her”. Then she grew on me (and not like mildew). All in all, she was likeable. She had that ability to make people gravitate around her, but not in a condescending, Mean Girl way, which I something I can appreciate. No slut-shaming here, no attempts to make others look bad; when she refused to take crap, she did it in a direct, not a passive-aggressive way (often involving snark and sarcasm, but not underhanded). She wasn’t perfect, and just like so many people, she tended to judge others on first impressions—yet she also did it on actions, and was able to revise her judgment when it appeared she was wrong. The potential for snotty, woe-is-me attitude went away quickly enough to my liking. Although Anne didn’t want to stay at Wheatley, she acknowledged she hadn’t much choice in the matter, so might as well do with it in the meantime.

Other characters were handled in believable ways. I wondered sometimes why the arson story wasn’t thrown in her face more often, because it definitely could’ve been, especially by the characters who didn’t like Anne; on the other hand, I also didn’t find it too surprising that, considering her way of handling things, such a “rumour” wouldn’t have looked like what would hurt her the most, and made her appear like the mysterious, dangerous, yet oddly attractive kid. The main Mean Girl character wasn’t as cliché as I thought at first; even though I couldn’t bring myself to like her, at least she had circumstances of her own. As for other high school clichés, they were nicely toyed with, and I didn’t feel them as heavy as they did in other similar works I read in the past.

The romance part didn’t really work for me. Fortunately, it never detracted from the story, never took precedence over the actual plot (investigation/murder), and I was very grateful for that. Only I just didn’t care much for it.

I also questioned some choices on Anne’s part at times. Mostly she came off as sensible, knowing she could end up in dangerous situations and preparing herself in case of. However, there were a few moments when I wondered if she wasn’t too trusting of some people, in a setting where “trust no one” should’ve been a definite rule. I found this a little jarring, especially considering how she used people in general. (I don’t mind the “use others” attitude in a place where everyone could potentially be a murderer, or at least someone with dirty secrets and a tendency to use their parents’ money to become a problem to you; that was sort of logical. But if you do that, don’t tell all your plans to some of those people either. Even though Anne investigating completely on her own wouldn’t have been too interesting, I suppose.)

This set aside, I really liked this story, and will likely pick the next book… because we’re clearly not done yet with the many skeletons in Wheatley’s many closets.