BOOK REVIEW: Night School: Legacy by CJ Daugherty

Night School: Legacy by CJ Daugherty is the second book in the Night School Series. Night School is a YA Suspense series that started with the first book in the series Night School (paperback 1^st published on 5 January 2012). The ISBN is 1907411224 and the novel was published on 3 January 2013 by Atom. I purchased this book in paperback.

PLOT

In the last year, Allie's survived three arrests, two breakups and one family breakdown. The only bright point has been her new life at Cimmeria Academy. It's the one place she's felt she belongs. And the fact that it's brought the dreamy Carter West into her life hasn't hurt. . .

But far from being a safe haven, the cloistered walls of Cimmeria are proving more dangerous than Allie could've imagined. The students, and faculty, are under threat and Allie's family - from her mysterious grandma to her runaway brother - are at the centre of the storm.

Allie is going to have to choose between protecting her family and trusting her friends. But secrets have a way of ripping even the strongest relationships apart . . .

WHY I BOUGHT IT

The first book really spoke to me even if it wasn’t what I expected. From the cover and the blurb at the back it screamed paranormal but it turns out this is an example of the somewhat less known genre of YA thriller.

WHAT I THOUGHT

This book continues on the riveting story from the first book in the series and we see Allie change in some ways but stay the same in others. There are things I like about this book and things I dislike but the book keeps me coming back and I think it is safe to say that I will be sticking around until the end of the series unless the quality of the writing falls off a cliff.

For all of us that read a large number of books that are part of a series we know that the problem with the first instalments in many of them that the plot has to be established and that characterisation especially of the supporting cast really suffers, this doesn’t happen every time but it does happen a great deal.

Night School: Legacy gives us a greater insight into some of the other students of the Cimmeria Academy and the series is improved as a result, we start to see into the motivations of characters like Carter and Jo which for me made me give them a little slack and makes me less hostile to them. This helped me with my enjoyment of the book for sure and let me concentrate on trying to figure out who could be trusted.

We have to talk about Allie at the beginning of this novel I can understand her reasons for losing it and we know this is how she deals with trauma but the almost instant turnaround that happens came across as incredibly hard to believe at first but as the book goes on we see that Allie does love to flip flop on major decisions.

PROS: The suspense is palpable and the way that the story moves between Allie’s battle to survive the perils of school and the far greater conspiracy that lies behind Cimmeria Academy.

CONS: It is difficult to root for or even tolerate either of the two love interests because when you look at it really you have a date rapist who admitted to doing the same in the past and a guy who can best be described as self-destructive.

CONCLUSION

Despite that controversial aspect of the series I am still happy to recommend that people read this series as they will get sucked in to the intrigue and the burning desire that you along with Allie can learn the truth. If you’ve taken the splash with the rather long opening book in the series then this is more of the same thankfully with a few answers too.

BOOK REVIEW: Night School by CJ Daugherty

Night School by CJ Daugherty is the first book in a YA series and was published on January 1^st 2012 by Atom Books. The ISBN is 1907411216 and I purchased the paperback edition. This review does not contain any spoilers.

PLOT

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.

And that she is not who she thought she was.

WHY I BOUGHT IT

I saw Night School featured on a blog a while back one of those special ones where they interview the author and I liked the sound of it. Boarding school mystery stories are usually quite interesting and I have particularly been let down by any I have read.

WHAT I THOUGHT

Even if you aren’t particularly interested in reading this book I would ask you to check out the blurb at the back as one of the best examples of keeping spoilers out of a plot summaries I have ever read. It succeeds it giving nothing away while leaving enough there for you to think that maybe this book is worth a read.

As the summary suggests this story is all about secrets and lies, Allie is in this strange new world that she wants to like but it is made clear early on that everyone around her is not telling her the whole truth and that leaves her at a disadvantage to say the least whilst also alienating her. The common threads from most boarding school stories are here devilishly handsome boys falling over themselves to date the protagonist an envious social Queen who does her best to bully and belittle her but is done in a way that is tolerable and often entertaining.

Night School manages to do this by making the cast of characters around Allie the other students interesting and real. Too often in boarding school books the rest of the cast can be described simply as the quiet one, the spoiled one, the hot one, the nerdy one but Night School does its best to make sure that if you wanted to list the characters featured in this book and describe them you’d need a lot more than one word to describe them.

I read through Night School in four days and that was after forcing myself to stop after reading a chunk just to let the whole thing sink in a bit before continuing on, there is quite a number of characters to keep track of and their relationships are important to note.

There is a real feeling of paranoia that pervades this book when you look at things from Allie to describe most of the people as two-faced is probably being too nice. They have their reasons only SOME of which are revealed by the end of this the first book in a series but reasons don’t help when everyone is lying to you.

Night School is a great example of the boarding school YA premise often done but rarely executed as well as this book. The characters, the suspense and the sense of intrigue keep you from putting this book down, trust me.