Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Lisa the Nerd

in a sentence or so: Gemma Doyle wants to go to london
like every other 16 year old. she finally gets her wish...after she has
a vision of her mom (which turns out to be real) committing suicide
while escaping a mysterious black shadow beast.

Gemma
arrives to Spence Academy in the middle of the year - which means
everyone already knows each other, she has last pick of rooms/roommate,
and is automatically the odd girl out. as if having weird visions that
she can't control doesn't make her odd enough. after some
cruel-yet-typical adolescent girl hazing, she finds her way into the
popular girl crowd at Spence. her condition upon entering the popular
clique is that they include Ann, Gemma's pudgy, boring, scholarship roommate. Gemma
and Ann, combined with Pippa (the beauty) and Felicity (the powerful
one), they start hanging out in a cave on the school grounds and take
to reading an old mysterious diary...and then start doing magic...

though it started off a bit blah for me, things started to build up pretty quickly. especially with Kartik, the mysterious potential love-interest, who tells Gemma to avoid the visions at all cost. which of coruse, she doesn't. there are dark forces out there that are trying to get at Gemma,
and she's just trying to figure it all out before it's too late. and
keep her friends safe, and her spiritual connection with her mother,
and learn how to be a proper british lady all at the same time.

since this is the first book in a trilogy,
i think a lot of the novel was set up. a lot of character development,
loose ends, and plot development. while i did genuinely enjoy the
characters and the story, overall it felt a bit blah to me. not sure if
i'll
read the next two. maybe if i can read them for free... to be fair, i
really did enjoy the wit, creative phrasing, and the feel of the book
in general. the characters and the writing were complex, but very easy
to relate to and stay in touch with throughout.

fave quote: "This is how fires start. With a spark. And I see the spark catching the wind." (375)

fix er up: just felt a bit blah to me.