Review Detail

4.5 1

Deephaven

Middle Grade Fiction 379

Boarding school with a major in HORROR

October 09, 2023

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

Guinevere "Nev" Tallow (who uses they/them pronouns) has been living in the city during the Great Depression. Their mother has died, and their father has been making sketchy choices, and is hauled off by loan sharks shortly after Nev has gotten an invitation to attend Deephaven, an exclusive private school in a secluded New England Valley. They are offered a scholarship, and when the father is no longer in the picture, Nev writes to accept the position. Still, even though there is someone to pick them up, the school is eerily deserted when they arrive. Patience Sleepwell is there, and shows Nev around, even making them a sandwich since the cooks aren't on duty. Each scholar at Deephaven gets a private room, and this is fairly luxurious to Nev, who is used to trying to earn a living selling small clockwork toys from a blanket in the park. Nev constantly wears a heavy, dark green jacket, and frequently appropriates objects lying about, like spools or pens, secreting them in their jacket just in case. Principal Blanchly is very stern, and tells Nev that the clockwork animals are what brought them to the school's attention, and that this is a rare opportunity that shouldn't be taken lightly. Nev does fairly well, but comes to the attention of a supercilious prefect, Thaddeus, who doesn't like their kind. They do make friends with Danny, a fencer, and the two investigate the forbidden East Wing together. The wing was closed after a partial collapse killed a student, and is strictly off limits. Nev feels that there is a bigger secret, and gets into trouble for entering the area, but doesn't give up. After Patience has a soiree to which Nev is invited, Nev finds out that the school harbors a dastardly secret that they hope to unravel. Will this be possible without losing the position at the exclusive school?

Good Points

The Depression setting does allow Nev to travel by train and communicate by letter, and also lets students wear older styles of clothing that Aldridge can render beautifully in line drawings throughout the book, but there's no reason to set it during this time, unless it is to deprive Nev of parents. Middle grade fantasy manages to do that regularly anyway, but the threat of a poor house in the 1940s is something different.

Nev does manage to uncover secrets that the staff is hiding, and that the students are complicit in. The monster is rather scary, and the reason behind its existence is definitely dark. I would have liked to have known more about why Deephaven existed, and what its specialized curriculum covers, but since academy tales often come in series, perhaps we will find out more in the next book.

Alexander's Gallowgate is the most closely related book to this spooky title, but readers of academy stories like Elle's A Taste Of Magic, Thomas' Nic Blake and the Remarkables, Whitesides' Janitors School of Garbage, and especially Fournet's Brick Dust and Bones and Royce's Conjure Island will find that Deephaven is a school that they would like to attend rather than the one in The Book That Shall Not Be Named.