Review: A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston

Publication Date: October 22^nd 2015
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Length: 256 pages

Thanks to Pan Macmillan for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Lo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to her village, looking for a wife. When she sees the dust cloud on the horizon, she knows he has arrived. She knows he will want the loveliest girl: her sister. She vows she will not let her be next.
And so she is taken in her sister’s place, and she believes death will soon follow. Lo-Melkhiin’s court is a dangerous palace filled with pretty things: intricate statues with wretched eyes, exquisite threads to weave the most beautiful garments. She sees everything as if for the last time. But the first sun rises and sets, and she is not dead. Night after night, Lo-Melkhiin comes to her and listens to the stories she tells, and day after day she is awoken by the sunrise. Exploring the palace, she begins to unlock years of fear that have tormented and silenced a kingdom. Lo-Melkhiin was not always a cruel ruler. Something went wrong.
Far away, in their village, her sister is mourning. Through her pain, she calls upon the desert winds, conjuring a subtle unseen magic, and something besides death stirs the air.
Back at the palace, the words she speaks to Lo-Melkhiin every night are given a strange life of their own. Little things, at first: a dress from home, a vision of her sister. With each tale she spins, her power grows. Soon she dreams of bigger, more terrible magic: power enough to save a king, if she can put an end to the rule of a monster.

See that blurb? That gargantuan blurb? That is basically the novel. In fact that would be the novel if it picked up the pace. I was so excited after reading ‘The Wrath and the Dawn’ earlier this year to see another take on the 1001 nights story, and this looked like it was going to fill that want perfectly.
However for me, it sadly falls far short of the mark.

It’s a very long winded re-telling which relies on the lyrical prose to carry everything along. Unfortunately I never really got swept away by the prose, so I just ended up feeling frustrated and bored. I kept putting this book down and forcing myself to come back to it.

No character is named, only Lo-Melkhiin, and I did like the mystery of it and how it gave the story an older, more traditional fable like feel. However at the same time it bogs the narrative down further (‘my father’s father’s father’ gets old real quick) and doesn’t allow you to actually connect with any of the characters. I never really felt for them, never cared for them and without that connection the entire story seems to disintegrate.

I also really struggled with the romance, point being that there was none and yet we were served a neat romance wrapped up with a pretty bow at the end. Where was the development and build up? There was nothing. Our heroine never actually has any interaction with the real Lo-Melkhiin so how can we as the reader convincingly believe the love between the two of them? It left me feeling confused and frustrated and felt as though some sort of crucial character points and scenes had been left out.

The final straw for me is that the pacing is truly abysmal. Nothing happens for the majority of the novel – we see build up and discovery of our heroine’s magic, but that isn’t enough to sustain a novel. Then the climax springs up out of nowhere, no real build up or time to feel like it’s deserved in the last twenty pages. After a novel of nothing, suddenly with twenty pages to go we have a battle, and then everything is done. There’s no real exploration, it’s just over and it feels thoroughly bizarre and frustrating.

I wanted to love this book, I wanted to be swept away by the unique style and lyrical prose, but sadly the idea just cannot be carried by the execution. It dragged to read and I never really felt caught by the idea, never felt fully immersed in the story, and as a result never really enjoyed it.

Review: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Publication Date: October 8^th 2015
Publisher: MacmillanLength: 522 pages

Simon Snow just wants to relax and savor his last year at the Watford School of Magicks, but no one will let him. His girlfriend broke up with him, his best friend is a pest, and his mentor keeps trying to hide him away in the mountains where maybe he’ll be safe. Simon can’t even enjoy the fact that his roommate and longtime nemesis is missing, because he can’t stop worrying about the evil git. Plus there are ghosts. And vampires. And actual evil things trying to shut Simon down. When you’re the most powerful magician the world has ever known, you never get to relax and savor anything.
Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, a mystery and a melodrama. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story — but far, far more monsters.

I’m still catching up with the rest of the world when it comes to Rainbow Rowell’s books, so when I started reading ‘Carry On’ I had no idea until a friend told me when I was a third of the way through that it was in fact a book that had been a fictional book in one of Rainbow Rowell’s other books ‘Fangirl’ where the main character wrote fanfiction about the character’s in ‘Carry On’. Confused yet? I was, but I was also highly entertained at how meta Rainbow was deciding to go with her latest novel.

Considering ‘Fangirl’ takes a fictional look at the real life Harry Potter fan-fic extravaganza, it is no surprise that the easiest way to sum up this book is to say that it’s like Harry Potter on crack.
It’s bizarre, completely insane, brilliant and more than a little crazy, and on the whole I loved it.

Rainbow dumps you into Simon and Baz’s final year at Watford and it feels like there should have been seven books leading up to this where we see all the crazy stuff they got up to and watch the rivalries and relationships develop. Instead we’re given this as a standalone and get constant references back to the various things that have happened in the past seven years. Sometimes that works brilliantly when they’re just casually dropped in and you have a moment of ‘wait, WHAT!?’ but other times I was just left feeling frustrated because I had missed all of this other stuff being referenced. It ends up being a bit of a mixed bag where some of it works and some of it doesn’t and I was left see sawing back and forth between loving it and being frustrated.

The magic is crazy. I adored so much of the insanity and frequently found myself laughing out loud – particularly at the phrases for spells that they use. It was all just so utterly bizarre. I also really loved the relationship between Simon and Baz, that was probably the best part of the entire novel for me. Scrap that, Baz was the best part of the novel for me. He’s snarky and aloof and the banter alone was fabulous. Rainbow plays on so many clichés and turns it into something other, something that you never expect.

However I did have a couple of problems with it, mostly due to the complete lack of surprise at the twists and reveals. I could see them coming right from the start so instead of it eliciting gasps and excitement from me, I was left waiting for the characters to catch on. I also struggled with Simon’s persistent one track mindedness about Baz in the first section of the novel. Once Baz makes an appearance and we start getting his point of view, it wasn’t nearly so frustrating and it didn’t bother me in the same way. However to start with Simon sounds like a broken record and the lack of anything else really driving the plot forward makes it drag a little until Baz shows up.

All in all this was a good book, a quick and enjoyable read, and one that has made me even more eager to go and read ‘Fangirl’. I’m proof that you don’t have to have read ‘Fangirl’ first to enjoy and understand ‘Carry On’, although we’ll see how my opinion of this book changes after reading the former. It’s not without its problems, but it’s funny and unique and if you’re a fan of Harry Potter is definitely one to pick up.

Review: Tonight The Streets Are Ours by Leila Sales

Publication Date: September 24^th 2015
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
Length: 342 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

From the author of This Song Will Save Your Life comes a funny and relatable book about the hazards of falling for a person you haven't met yet.
Seventeen-year-old Arden Huntley is recklessly loyal. Taking care of her loved ones is what gives Arden purpose in her life and makes her feel like she matters. But she's tired of being loyal to people who don't appreciate her—including her needy best friend and her absent mom. 
Arden finds comfort in a blog she stumbles upon called "Tonight the Streets Are Ours," the musings of a young New York City writer named Peter. When Peter is dumped by the girlfriend he blogs about, Arden decides to take a road trip to see him.
During one crazy night out in NYC filled with parties, dancing, and music—the type of night when anything can happen, and nearly everything does—Arden discovers that Peter isn't exactly who she thought he was. And maybe she isn't exactly who she thought she was, either.

This is a very complex mix of a novel. It isn’t what I was expecting and in some ways that’s a very good thing and in others not so great. I’m feeling a little conflicted because it’s fascinating and interesting and very well written and with some beautiful twisty elements, but at the same time I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t like any of the characters, so that kinda dampens any enthusiasm I would otherwise have.

Arden is a complex and intriguing character that I really didn’t like, but she was still fascinating to follow. Her ‘thing’ is being ‘recklessly loyal’. She is labelled this when she was young and she thinks this is all she is, the sum total of all of her parts and that shapes everything she does, every decision, every conversation. Some people will identify and love her character for the way she goes out of her way to look after others and how that leaves her feeling, and I could identify with her to a certain extent, but there were decisions and elements that I really struggled with because she really takes it to extremes. Add in her attitude and thought process and she comes across as someone who enjoys being a martyr, who likes feeling hard done by that no one loves her as much as she loves them, because she never really allows anyone else to have any autonomy. Basically she’s a control freak, which becomes increasingly obvious with every interaction she is with others, particularly with Lindsay. She doesn’t ever actually consider whether the people she being recklessly loyal to actually want that. She just keeps on sacrificing herself over and over again without discussion, without allowing the people to be people. They are just a means to her being her ‘recklessly loyal’ label. It’s complicated and messy and fascinating.

The rest of the characters were all layers of ‘what the hell’ awfulness, but also kinda relatable characteristics. Her Mum who walks out on the family because she can’t deal with the lack of support from her husband and children. On the one hand it is incredibly selfish, particularly putting it on the kids in part for her not having the space to fulfil her dreams. But on the other, I completely got where she was coming from. The lack of support from those we love when we go out of our way to care for them can be soul destroying, so whilst I couldn’t get behind how her storyline plays out, I could fully understand it as what happened emerges.

The same cannot be said for Arden’s Father who I loathed all the way through. The sort of man who has the family dog put down because he can’t deal with the hassle? No. Not even a little bit. The same goes for Chris, who really frustrated me all the way through. He was awful towards Arden, expecting her to just be a passive ‘thing’ that he could say was his. No hassle, no drama, no sort of inclination to be there and support her. It makes the reader hate him from the start which then begs the question, is that done purely so we are on Arden’s side when she rushes off to find Peter?

And Peter. Oh boy, let’s talk about Peter. I really didn’t like him, right from the start. His blog just grated. He was so creepy and kinda overblown romantic but most definitely not in a good way. And he pursues a girl he knows is taken and shows no remorse. Just, no boy. I find his blog posts frustrating and then we meet him and he’s so much worse because he’s so full of himself and his own importance and I wanted to smack him. I get incoherently angry just thinking about him.

Some of the decisions that drive this story are as side eye worthy as the characters. I’ve already touched on Dad putting the dog down and Mum leaving, but the big one is always going to be Arden’s decision that what Peter most needs when his girlfriend breaks up with him, is her. It’s weird and terrifying and stalkerish and frankly Peter should have run the other direction, but it’s also fascinating. It takes a good long look at how the internet allows us to build up relationships with people that are entirely one sided. Because whilst Peter had no idea who on earth Arden was, she had built up this entire persona of him based on the pieces he was choosing to portray. She had turned to his blog when she needed comfort and distraction and this facet of Peter had become a major part of her life so for her, he was damn near perfect (because hey, when you’re shading in the gaps in someone you don’t really know but you also kinda do, of course they’re going to be perfect) and it made perfect sense that what he needed was her. It’s such a strange phenomenon these internet relationships we form. Some of them go both ways, some are one way, and it’s intriguing and complex and scary in places but this aspect is really well explored in the novel. And to see that relationship form on Arden’s side and then have her go and seek out the reality and see how that plays is really well done.

Other than characters and plot there’s just the pacing to talk about, because it gets a little bit strange in the middle. When Arden is discovering Peter’s blog we stop hearing anything very much about her life other than the odd ‘hey, bored, going to look at his blog again’ so you suddenly have an influx of Peter’s story and none of Arden’s and when you’re invested in Arden’s it can be very frustrating until it balances out again. I did however love the time jumps all over the place, both with Arden reading Peter’s blog out of order to start with, but also with Arden herself. We have anecdotes about her childhood, her past, her and Chris, and it’s fascinating to piece it all together into one narrative and works really well.

So as I said, this one was mixed. I really didn’t get along well with the characters, yet they were fascinating and intrigued me. I found a lot of the decisions really hard to process, but the results were complex and I found myself becoming increasingly invested. I loved the reveals and the twists as everything unfurled and we see the full picture, and I loved how the book explores relationships. And all sorts of relationships at that. Parents, siblings, partners, friends, random people on the internet. It’s a book of many layers and sifting through them is half the fun. It’s a book that isn’t afraid to make the point that we can never know the full story, we only see what other people allow us to see and what we allow ourselves to see.

It’s not a book I particularly enjoyed, but it’s a book that I think is done well, and one that I’m curious to see responses from other people when it comes out at the end of the month.

Review: Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa

Publication Date: September 10^th 2015
Publisher: Macmillan
Length: 336 pages

Thanks to Macmillan for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

This is the story of a girl, her gay best friend, and the boy in love with both of them.
Ten months after her recurring depression landed her in the hospital, Mira is starting over as a new student at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to act like a normal, functioning human this time around, not a girl who sometimes can’t get out of bed for days on end, who only feels awake when she’s with Sebby. 
Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis who’s been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn it’s as if he’s been expecting this blond, lanky boy with a mischievous glint in his eye. 
Sebby, Mira’s gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him like a backlit halo. Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and secret road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives. 
As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Mira’s world, he begins to understand the secrets that they hide in order to protect themselves, to keep each other safe from those who don’t understand their quest to live for the impossible.
A captivating and profound debut novel, "Fans of the Impossible Life" is a story about complicated love and the friendships that change you forever.

When I was told about the book, the first thing that leaped out at me was the line in the picture – ‘Mira is a chronic fatigue syndrome suffering, vintage dress enthusiast’ and I wanted to read it based on that and the tag line. That was enough for me, because I have CFS and I have never seen a character in a YA book who has CFS too. Wanting diverse fiction is not just about sexuality and skin colour, it is about all the other things that make us unique individuals. I want to find someone, just one someone, in a book who I can look at and feel like they understand.

So I was insanely excited to read it, and then I did and was grossly disappointed, because Mira doesn’t have CFS, she has depression. Two wildly different things. Now that isn’t the author’s fault, that’s on the marketing department for pitching this as something that it wasn’t, but it broke my heart. Finally, I thought, I had found a book that would look at how crippling and little known CFS is, and how a YA character deals with life whilst also dealing with CFS, and it was all a lie. I don’t think I can even adequately put into words how upset I was about this. Yes fatigue and exhaustion are a part of depression, and no I'm not suggesting if you have depression you can't have CFS or vice versa, but if Mira does have CFS it isn't examined or even mentioned at all, the only things we learn about her are that she loves vintage clothes and she suffers from crippling depression.

However if the rest of the book had been amazing that wouldn’t have been the end of the world. As it was the rest of the book didn’t work for me either, and I was left feeling frustrated and dispirited by the last page.

I didn’t connect with any of the characters. I wanted to, I felt for them and their impossible situations, but I didn’t really care. I had to keep pushing myself to keep reading, to find out how this would end. And then the end came and left me feeling thoroughly unsatisfied. This may have been due in part to the strange choice in writing style. Each character is written differently, and whilst Mira and Jeremy's both kinda work, Sebby's really doesn't. Every time we had a section from Sebby I was jolted back out of the story and left floundering to try and reconnect.

I should have loved everything about this book. It tackled sexuality, depression, isolation and bullying. It had a love triangle that was such a breath of fresh air that I wanted to cheer. But despite all of this it never really got under my skin. Like I said, I didn’t connect with the characters, I didn’t care what happened to them. I found myself becoming increasingly depressed reading the book and was left at the end feeling like what was the point. There was no satisfaction, no real sense of hope, of a journey completed. I was left feeling a similar feeling to the one when I finished ‘Eleanor and Park’ by Rainbow Rowell.
They all seem to end in roughly the same place as they began, which led me to wonder what precisely the point of the story had been. They didn't seem to really grow or develop at all. I also really struggled with how some of the issues were tackled. For example when a situation occurs and various characters decide to finally speak up and go to the authorities, it is treated later as though this was a bad idea, as though they should have stayed quiet. So many of the big themes and issues that the book looks at the start like it might tackle, are just swept under the rug in favour of the trios slightly unhealthy relationship. Plus, if from that tag line you're expecting an interesting and insightful bisexual/threesome relationship, you've come to the wrong book. At no point is the idea of bisexuality even mentioned and there are some decidedly worrying scenes between the trio where consent is more than a little iffy.

The only characters that I found truly fascinating were the adults. Mira’s response to her depression was achingly realistic and heart-breaking and it was good to see such a response portrayed in fiction. I also really loved the diversity in the families. We see a biracial family, a foster family and a family with two parents of the same sex. No one can fault 'Fans of the Impossible Life' for its inclusion and desire to tackle lots of diverse branches of life, it simply doesn't handle them very well once they've been introduced. And don't even get me started on how the teacher/student relationships are handled in this. So many potentially awesome things just ended up as a hot mess once I'd finished and begun to think back through the book.
Other than that it was just a lot of different people who never really stood out for me. They were all shown as these blindingly unique and ‘WILL NOT BE LABELED’ characters, but they never felt truly real or human.

I think I will probably be in the minority for this one, because there is a lot to love about this book and I’m looking forward to seeing other people’s responses when reading it. However for me it just wasn’t quite what I had hoped for. It started with a falsehood and went downhill from there.

Review: Royal Wedding by Meg Cabot

Publication Date: July 2^nd 2015 (UK)
Publisher: Macmillan
Length: 400 pages

Huge thanks to Pan Macmillan for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

From Meg Cabot, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Princess Diaries series, comes the very first new adult instalment, featuring the now grown-up Princess Mia!
Royal Wedding follows Princess Mia and her Prince Charming as they plan their fairy tale wedding - but a few poisoned apples could turn this happily-ever-after into a royal nightmare.
For Princess Mia, the past five years since college graduation have been a whirlwind of activity, what with living in New York City, running her new teen community centre, being madly in love, and attending royal engagements. And speaking of engagements, Mia's gorgeous longtime boyfriend Michael managed to clear both their schedules just long enough for an exotic (and very private) Caribbean island interlude where he popped the question! Of course Mia didn't need to consult her diary to know that her answer was a royal oui.
But now Mia has a scandal of majestic proportions to contend with: Her grandmother's leaked "fake" wedding plans to the press that could cause even normally calm Michael to become a runaway groom. Worse, a scheming politico is trying to force Mia's father from the throne, all because of a royal secret that could leave Genovia without a monarch. Can Mia prove to everyone - especially herself - that she's not only ready to wed, but ready to rule as well?

I loved the Princess Diaries books when I was growing up (and the first film, but don’t talk to me about the second, even Chris Pine can’t make that one good for me…) so I was incredibly excited to hear that Mia was making a comeback in the form of her first adult diary.

Fear not those of you who either a) haven’t read the books but have seen the film, b) have read the books but haven’t read them for a long time or c) have only read some of the books – you will keep up just fine. I was nervous going in because I haven’t read any of the rest of the series in a very long time and I wasn’t sure how much I’d remember, but there is a genius article at the start of the book which gives a set up for the events of this book plus a handy re-cap of the important points of the rest of the books so that if like me you’ve forgotten a lot, you’ll still be up to speed enough to enjoy this.

Meg Cabot is a genius. She wrote a truly brilliant and accurate fourteen year old, and now leaped to write a truly brilliant and accurate twenty six year old without compromising and losing any of Mia’s identity. Mia is all grown up but still the brilliant girl she was. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed her until I started reading and was laughing within the first few pages.

"Is Michael Moscovitz the world's greatest lover? 'YES!' says sex-mad Princess Mia, declares the cover of this week's InTouch.
Michael's dad thought this was so hilarious, he bought dozens of copies to give to his friends and even his patients. Michael's asked him to stop, but his dad won't listen. 
"You really expect me not to buy this?" Dr. Moscovitz asked. "My son is the world's greatest lover! It says so right here. Of course I'm going to buy this!"

The book is brilliant, the perfect summer read. It’s full of humour, snark and some truly insane moments. Some steamier moments – be warned this is not a book you want your princess diaries loving teen to read, save it for when they’re a little bit older. And the whole character cast are back for a fast paced, fantastic encore. I had forgotten just how terrible Grandmére could be, how sweet and wonderful Michael could be, and how much of a hypochondriac Mia is. It reminded me of everything I loved whilst giving a fantastic look on life as a twenty something juggling life, boyfriends and family – even if we aren’t all royalty as well…
Told through the traditional diary entries as well as a whole host of amazing texts (Grandmére I am looking at you and your sidecar) as well as emails, forms and Mia’s obsessive consultations of her Rate the Royals rating, this is a book that fairly comes alive and drags you into the hilarious romp of a story.

The only thing I really struggled with was the Wedding Stress, and yes that does warrant capitals. Having gone through W.S. this time last year, it is still a little too close to home and I found my palms sweating and my heart racing and the utter indignation and rage swelling every time Grandmére told Mia that of course she couldn’t have what she wanted at her wedding. Rage inducing. I felt so awful for Mia, even though it was all being made light of, that this incredibly important day was being ripped out of her control.

This is everything old fans could wish for and more, it is a perfect continuation for Mia’s story as well as tying in brilliantly to the newly released "From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess”. And I think Mia will be earning a whole new host of fans with her first adult diary. I just really hope that this isn’t a one off, given the ending of this book I would love to see what happens next for Mia and Michael.

Review: A School for Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin

Publication Date: May 19^th 2015
Publisher: Macmillan Tor/Forge
Length: 352 pages

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Tor for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

It’s 1814. Napoleon is exiled on Elba. Europe is in shambles. Britain is at war on four fronts. And Stranje House, a School for Unusual Girls, has become one of Regency England’s dark little secrets. The daughters of the beau monde who don't fit high society’s constrictive mold are banished to Stranje House to be reformed into marriageable young ladies. Or so their parents think. In truth, Headmistress Emma Stranje, the original unusual girl, has plans for the young ladies—plans that entangle the girls in the dangerous world of spies, diplomacy, and war.
After accidentally setting her father’s stables on fire while performing a scientific experiment, Miss Georgiana Fitzwilliam is sent to Stranje House. But Georgie has no intention of being turned into a simpering, pudding-headed, marriageable miss. She plans to escape as soon as possible—until she meets Lord Sebastian Wyatt. Thrust together in a desperate mission to invent a new invisible ink for the English war effort, Georgie and Sebastian must find a way to work together without losing their heads—or their hearts...

I was all kinds of excited when this book first popped up on my radar. Regency period? A favourite. Romance? Yes please. Young ladies sent to a reformatory school which is actually a front for a training school for spies and espionage? Give it to me now.

It all started off so well, but unfortunately there were all kinds of problems littered throughout that stopped this book being the read I’d hoped it would be. 

Let’s start with the biggest thing for me. I am a huge stickler for historical accuracy. If you’re going to write a book and set it in a particular time period then for goodness sake get the etiquette, speech and ideas right. This felt like a contemporary novel dressed up in pretty dresses to look like an historical one, without any of the constraints of the time period. It felt like it was attempting something along the same lines as Gail Carriger’s ‘Finishing School’ books, but whilst Carriger adheres to the rules of the period and then plays with the ideas and brings in humour, ‘A School for Unusual Girls’ just ignored all of the rules and as a result really frustrated me (and anyone else who expects some modicum of historical accuracy when reading an historical novel.)

The second big frustration was two-fold – the lack of any real depth to the characters and the instalove. These were kind of combined as the lack of depth contributed to the love story feeling forced and out of place. Georgia knows the man for all of four days before she decides she’s completely in love with him (and vice versa) and that’s what sets off the chain of rather obvious and ludicrous events of the second half. The girls at the school were fascinating and I wanted to know more about them, but aside from Tess they are largely relegated to the background, presumably so they can be trotted out in future books and not have the reader know a huge amount about them.

The whole thing just felt like an exercise in frustration. It was full of great ideas poorly executed. A mixture of truly interesting characters and then our heroine who seemed largely unable to function like a coherent human being. For someone who is supposedly intelligent and logical she really doesn’t show it. It feels like it’s going to be a novel based in reality and then there are vague allusions to the supernatural and premonitions which felt forced and jarred me because where? What? Why? They are thrown in and then the reader is given nothing more – no explanations or anything. That actually drove a huge amount of the irritation for me. Georgie is thrown into this school against her will and then no one will talk to her or explain anything to her and she isn’t really given a choice. If the idea behind the school isn’t spoiled in the blurb then this refusal to answer questions might prolong the tension, but as it is it was just irritating in the extreme.

Then there were the niggly errors, like a two days passing and then characters referring to the events from two days previous as yesterday which made the whole thing infinitely more confusing and frustrating than it needed to be. There were also problems with tenses and grammar in some places – all things that could have been easily rectified in edits.

I was so excited to read this novel, I had such high hopes and expectations, but unfortunately it failed to live up to any of the expectations. It suffers from the problem that a lot of start of series novels seem to find themselves in, they are so busy building up the set up that they don’t focus on becoming an interesting story in their own right, they are effectively a prequel for the second book where the story will hopefully start to kick off.

There were some interesting elements – the premise, some of the other girls, the alternate history – but unfortunately they are buried in amongst so many errors and irritations. I may look out for the next book, but my interest hasn’t been held and I will most likely avoid the second book in the series unless I hear that it has improved drastically on this one.