by Marta Acosta
Published July 3rd 2012
by Tor/Macmillan
ARC from Netgalley
Summary from Goodreads:
When foster teen Jane Williams is invited to attend elite Birch Grove Academy for Girls and escape her violent urban neighborhood, she thinks the offer is too good to be true. She's even offered her own living quarters, the groundskeeper's cottage in the center of the birch grove.
Something's not quite right about the school -- or is it Jane? She thinks she sees things in the birch grove at night. She's also beginning to suspect that the elegant headmistress and her sons are hiding secrets. Lucky is the gorgeous, golden son who is especially attentive to Jane, and Jack is the sardonic puzzling brother.
The school with its talented teachers and bright students is a dream for a science and math geek like Jane. She also loves her new friends, including hilarious poetry-spouting rich girl, Mary Violet. But the longer Jane stays at Birch Grove, the more questions she has about the disappearance of another scholarship girl and a missing faculty member.
Jane discovers one secret about Birch Grove, which only leads to more mysteries. What is she willing to sacrifice in order to stay at this school...and be bound to Birch Grove forever?
Thoughts:
Maybe I would have enjoyed this book more if I have not read a ton of YA books with a somewhat similar plotline. A new girl enrolled in a private school located in a secluded compound known as Birch Grove. At first, everything seems perfect. Jane meet some new friends and was taken under the wing of the kind headmistress who is living near the school with her family. And this nice headmistress apparently have two sons and Jane is immediately attracted to one of them.
And then Jane discovered some weird things about the school. A former student and a teacher has been missing but everyone in the school is so nonchalant about it as if nothing happened. Are they hiding something? Yes, of course. But the book sure took a long time to reveal that bit of mystery and instead I had to slog through nearly two-third of the book which consists of teenage crushes and juvenile antics which I found so uninspiring.
Sadly, I must say that this book is certainly not for me. There are better books with mysterious boarding school in them and the paranormal element seemed out of place here.
Verdict: 1 star.
Available on: Amazon
I appreciate the honest review thank you. I think I'll pass on this one.
ReplyDeleteI always get frustrated by authors that think they have to withhold all of the details of the mystery until the very end. I want the story to unfold...not explode at the end after I'm pissed off that nothing has happened!
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