I really really really wanted to love this, but it just felt short.
Quell and her mother have been on the run for years in an attempt to hide her dark magic, however when they're backed into a corner she ends up at her grandmom's (sigh yes grandmom) estate.
The estate is truly a combination magical and finishing school. I loved the magical school aspect of it, but the finishing school piece is really what killed it for me.
The book turns into sort of a mean girls, but still not like other girls, focused mess rather than keep magic front and center. Everything is about pedigree and power - which sounds cooler than this book is.
Of course there is a romantic interest and another boy hunting Quell which I assume is being set up to be the third angle of a love triangle in the next book because the tropes run deep in this one.
Everything just felt a bit too much like something I'd read before all mashed up together.
Quell and her mother have been on the run for years in an attempt to hide her dark magic, however when they're backed into a corner she ends up at her grandmom's (sigh yes grandmom) estate.
The estate is truly a combination magical and finishing school. I loved the magical school aspect of it, but the finishing school piece is really what killed it for me.
The book turns into sort of a mean girls, but still not like other girls, focused mess rather than keep magic front and center. Everything is about pedigree and power - which sounds cooler than this book is.
Of course there is a romantic interest and another boy hunting Quell which I assume is being set up to be the third angle of a love triangle in the next book because the tropes run deep in this one.
Everything just felt a bit too much like something I'd read before all mashed up together.