Thursday, January 14, 2010

YA Review: Firespell by Chloe Neill


Firespell
Author: Chloe Neill
Publication: Signet (January 5, 2010)
Pages: 246


Amazon Product Information:
New Girl.
New School.
Old Evil.

From the author of the Chicagoland Vampires novels.

A new series about a boarding school filled with something worse than homework.

Lily's parents have sent her to a fancy boarding school in Chicago filled with the ultra-rich. If that wasn't bad enough, she's hearing and seeing bizarre things on St. Sophie's creepy campus. Her roommate, Scout, keeps her sane, but keeps disappearing at night. When one day Lily finds Scout running from real-life monsters, she learns the hard way that Scout is involved in a splinter group of rebel teens.

They protect Chicago from demons, vamps, and dark magic users. It's too bad Lily doesn't have powers of her own to help. At least, none that she's discovered yet...


My Thoughts: I really like Lily's voice in this book. She is smart and smart-mouthed. Her is her comment as she enters the room of one of her suite-mates, one of the "brat pack" that makes life interesting for Lily and her BFF Scout:
"I ventured inside and got my first look...at the room pink threw up on. Honestly--it looked like a Barbie factory exploded. There was pink everywhere, from the walls to the carpet to the bedspread and the pillowcases. I practically had to squint against the glare."
She is an attractive and self-confident young woman who is trying very hard to make sense of a bewildering situation. Besides the whole magic problem, Lily also meets a boy and that relationship begins in this book with some cute scenes. This quote sums up Lily's attitude as she gets involved in the secret activities at St. Sophia's:
"Have you ever had one of those days when you give up on being really clean, and settle for largely clean? Where you don't have time for the entire scrubbing and exfoliating regime, so tou settle for the basics? Where brushing your teeth becomes the most vigorous part of your cleaning ritual?


Yeah, welcome to Monday morning at St. Sophia's School for (Slightly Grimy) Girls."
I found the book to be a satisfying and entertaining read filled with interesting characters and with an interesting system of magic. There are unanswered questions: what is the real story with Lily's parents? what is Sebastian doing? where does the relationship with Jason go? what about Lily's magic? I hope these are answered in further books in this new series.

Challenges: 2010 YA Debut Author, 2010 YA Reading Challenge, RYOB Challenge

5 comments:

  1. Great review! I've heard such excellent things about this book :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awesome review! I'm really looking forward to reading Firespell. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really want to read Neill's stuff - both Firespell and Chicagoland Vampires - so glad to hear more favourable reviews for Firespell!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I want this book. Almost bought it, but I had entered so many give aways for them I wanted to wait until they were done. I was suprised at the size of the book. It was smaller than I thought.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for linking this on my blog. Great review- I loved that humor too. I laughed so much in this book.

    ReplyDelete

I love getting comments. Let me know what you think.

This blog is now officially declared an Award Free zone! I do appreciate your kindness in thinking of me and I am humbled by your generosity.

Your comments are award enough for me. Comment away!