Language: PG-13 (40 swears, 0 ‘f'); Mature Content: PG (kissing); Violence: R (Physical and emotional abuse by parent and at the school for troubled teens; death)
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
APPEALS TO: SEVERAL
17yo Hazel feels like a loner in her school. She’s placed with Becca and her popular friends for a group homework assignment. They decide to research the local condemned school for troubled teens that closed about thirty years ago when it caught on fire; the school is supposedly haunted. Becca, Amber and Simon play a prank on Hazel and then she falls off a roof and breaks her arm. Before she fell, she heard whispers and followed them out onto the roof. Once Hazel is home, she feels different and notices that she’s acting strangely and doesn’t like the same colors or foods that she did before the visit to the school. She also feels angry all the time. Hazel decides to investigate the history of the school and what she finds shakes her to the core.
I was pulled right into the story and didn’t want to put it down. I love the character development and Hazel’s, Quint’s, and Deidre’s stories. Hazel’s life is hopeful, Quint deals with abuse from his family and Deidre’s life is tragic. I appreciate the content warnings the author put in the front of the book. I enjoyed the added supernatural elements tremendously.
The author provides her research notes about the real schools for troubled teens that she based this story on.
Hazel is from Puerto Rican and Polish descent, Becca and Quint are white. The others are a mix of ethnicities.
LynnDell Watson, DHS Librarian, Delta, Utah
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