Review | Night School by C.J Daugherty

Title : Night School

Publisher : Atom

Release Date : January 1st 2012

Genres : YA, Mystery

Pages : 454

Rating : ★★★☆☆

Allie Sheridan’s world is falling apart. Her brother’s run away from home. Her parents ignore her. And she’s just been arrested.

Again.

This time her parents have had enough. They cut her off from her friends and send her away to boarding school, far from her London friends.

But at Cimmeria Academy, Allie is soon caught up in the strange activities of a secret group of elite students.

When she’s attacked late one night the incident sets off a chain of increasingly violent events. As the school begins to seem like a very dangerous place, she finds out that nothing at Cimmeria is what it seems to be.

Going into Night School you will find :

- A boarding school. The main character (Allie) is sent to a boarding school after her third arrestation. The plot moves quickly from there. There is no useless dragging between the moment she's arrested and her arrival in the boarding school or should I say huge mansion where teachers ask you to call them by their first name. How cool is that ?
This school has a lot of rules and no electronic device is allowed in (okay, I would definitely hate it there). It's detached from the « real » world but this distance allows to get completely immersed in it. 


- A curious MC.


« Trouble is my default setting ». 


I would have liked to see more of a rebel side in her. For a girl who's been expelled from several high school she was a bit too rule-abiding for my taste which leads to her almost imperctible development throughout the book. It's more of a change of heart than anything else.


- A good romance that is kind of a love triangle. There are two male interests but she isn't interested in them at the same time. We have Sylvain, the nice guy with a french accent (is that really that attractive ? I don't see it) who seems to be a big deal in the school. Then we have Carter, the mysterious guy who doesn't mingle with other students. Also known to be a heartbreaker.
I was disappointed when what happened during the ball (if you've read it, you know what I'm talking about) wasn't more developped. It's a serious thing and it was brushed away as if it wasn't a big deal. We don't know anything more about it. Did it happen before ? Why doesn't anybody know about it ? 


- Secrets. Lots and lots of secrets. Almost everyone seems to be hiding something. Allie is kept in the dark from what's happening by the headmistress, the teachers, her friends...


« The voice in her head told her not to trust him. But then, the voice in her head didn't trust anyone ».


- And then, the mysterious « Night School » whose activites are unknown to students who aren't in it but seem connected to everything weird happening.

Overall, I liked the general atmosphere of the book. If you like reading about boarding schools with a thriller aspect to it, you should pick up Night School.