Review: The Castle School by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

The Castle School by Alyssa B. Sheinmel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

This book wasn't what I was expecting. Based on the description I was expecting something darker and more of a thriller, however this is a hard hitting YA contemporary. As someone who reads alot of thrillers, this is not a thriller at all. While there are secrets that main character Moira uncovers, they aren't dark, sinister, mysterious, or fantastical. This book deals with grief, mental health, friendship, and recovery. I probably would have never read this had I not been mislead by the description. This isn't normally the type of book I gravitate towards, but I still enjoyed it.

The main character Moira is shipped off to The Castle School after her parents decide they can't deal with her troublesome behavior any longer. Moira feels like she is being sent away as a punishment for not living up to her mother's expectations. Moira finds herself surrounded by 11 other girls who each have their own story and their own path to recovery at the Castle. We do get a few pages about each of the girls and how they ended up at the Castle School, but for the most part the character development is focused mainly on Moira and not on the other 11 girls in the book. I did feel it was a nice touch that we got their backstories so we understood them each a bit better.

Moira is determined that Dr. Prince can't help her, and she thinks his methods and rules are all stupid. After all she is being punished right? So when she hears music coming from somewhere and finds the lock on her window broken she of course has to investigate. This is the part where you expect the thriller/mystery aspect to take off, but what she finds is an identical school full of boys, they don't have the same rules as the girls so of course Moira thinks they have it better. It is a "the grass is always greener" kind of situation. As Moira progresses through her therapy, she also learns that the grass isn't always greener as she gets to know more about the boys at "fun castle" and the girls at her own castle.

Overall, I thought this book was well written and I did enjoy it. I do feel that the synopsis could have been more clearly written and this should have been clearly marketed as a heavy hitting contemporary.

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