Book Review: Hex Hall

Another book recommendation from The Enchanted Inkpot but I liked this book less than some of their other recommendations. I liked the cover and the premise but I would've had second thoughts if I had seen this cover instead, which really isn't what the book is about at all, actually, both of the covers for this book confuse me.

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

 One thing about this cover puzzles me, they went to a great deal of trouble to match up the girls and even flip the title text around in the water, so why throw in a cat? It was stated pretty early on that Sophie is allergic to cats and there weren't any cats in the book so why? And the darn thing is on the cover for the second book as well, seriously, does anyone know?

Summary: Sophie is a witch and after a love spell gone wrong, only the latest in a long line of failed spells apparently, she is sentenced to Hecate Hall, a school for fledgling witches, shifters and fae, for the next two years. The reason behind this is to make her safe to society (ie, not cause catastrophes every few months) but Hex Hall might be more dangerous for Sophie than the real world.

The Good: The boarding school of magic has been done to death by now and, even though this book reminded me a bit too much of the House of Night Series, it was done well enough. The characters were somewhat genre-savy and the plot ended up being a bit more complex than I expected (wasn't expecting there to be two sets of villains, that's a bit unusual) and it has plenty of material for a sequel.

The Bad: I did like the first part of the book but by the end there were too many cliches present for me to really enjoy it. Oh look, the bad-boy-our-protagonist-has-a-crush-on-really-has-a-heart-of-gold-after-all! And the libby becomes semi-likable! It just wasn't original enough for me in the end with either it's setting or characters, plot twists notwithstanding, and I don't really feel the urge to read the sequel.


Not much to say about it I know but this book just didn't really stand out to me. It did some stuff well but other things were just average. If I see some really good reviews for the sequel I'll check it out but otherwise I'll read something else (and never know why there's that silly cat on the cover).