Have you ever heard of Night School?

Review
Night School
by C.J. Daugherty

 

First sentences:

“Hurry up!”

Summary:
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.

source: Goodreads

My opinion:

I received Night School two years for my birthday from my mum. She rarely buys me Young Adult books so this one was really special. It was also a series I hadn’t heard of and it sounded so good. Then the usual thing happened – I put the book on my shelves and forgot that I had it. Whoops!

In July 2014 I stumbled over it once again while looking for a new book and decided to read it since the books two to four were already out. I picked it up Saturday afternoon and finished it Sunday afternoon. I spent a whole day inside the gates of Cimmeria Academy and loved it there. I felt the need to buy the other books right away and immerse myself into the world for a longer period of time. I hardly ever binge-read a series (I can only recall one other series I binge-read in my whole reading life) but Night School really is a series I want to read straight through.

This whole world is just amazing. It is dark, twisted and full of secrets and mysteries. You can never be sure who to trust and if the things people tell Allie, the main character, are true and really happened that way or if they are just another way of distracting her. Even writing my review now makes me want to dive into Legacy straight away.

The characters are all perfectly written. Each and everyone has their secrets and since we readers only know as much as Allie knows, we can never be sure if she’s talking to a friend or foe.

The story takes twists and turns I never expected and at the end I was even more confused than when Allie first came to Cimmeria Academy. I fell in love with the main characters and I am hoping to discover more about their intentions and motives in the next books, which are already on my shelves.

Even though you could read Night School as a standalone because there is not a huge cliffhanger at the end, I am pretty sure you won’t be able to resist the temptation of the next book in the series.

I also had the opportunity to meet C.J. Daugherty while I was in London in August and she is so lovely and nice. I think the best way to describe her is “totally normal” in the best way possible. She is easy to approach and gave amazing advice to some others who were at the meet-up who want to become writers, she told us a lot about the inspiration for Cimmeria Academy and was such a positive person. If you want to read more about me meeting C.J. and Amy Plum, click here.

The books in the Night School series are:

• Night School
• Legacy
• Fracture
• Resistance
• Endgame (expected publishing date: June 2015)

For more information about C.J. Daugherty visit her Homepage and her Facebook and Twitter page.