Sarina Dorie
Pub Date 14 April 2018
Book Blurb:
You think you know the world of magical boarding schools? Not from a teacher’s perspective at a school for at risk youth. Like any twenty-two-year-old who grew up obsessed with fantasy novels, Clarissa Lawrence expects all her Harry Potter fantasies to come true when she is invited to teach at a school for witches. Her dreams of learning magic—and being a good teacher—are complicated when she finds out her deceased mother was the equivalent of the Wicked Witch of the West.
As if being the new “arts and crafts” teacher isn’t hard enough at a school for juvenile delinquent witches, budget cuts are just as severe in the magic community, administrators are as unrealistic in their expectations of teachers, and the job is a hazard if the students find out you can’t actually do magic.
Amidst all these challenges, Clarissa must prove she’s not her mother’s mini-me and that she belongs at the school so she can learn to control her powers. If she fails, her powers will be drained, or worse yet, she might be enslaved by the Fae.
As if this isn’t enough pressure, she has to figure out why teachers are mysteriously disappearing. If she doesn’t, she might be next.
This book was mixed for me. Parts of it were fun, but other parts were . . . rather cringe-worthy.
The premise is similar to Hogwarts, only from the teacher’s point of view. Our protaginist, Clarissa Lawrence, is the new art teacher who knows quite a bit about art, but very little about magic. She’s at the (slightly rundown) school of magic to learn more about magic and more about her birth mother, a true wicked witch. Because her mum’s crimes, she’s treated with a lot of hostility from other members of the school staff.
I liked the premise, but the main character seemed like she was going out of her way to be disliked. Her vocabulary reminded me more of a pre-teen than a 20-something teacher as did her attire (which included wearing Disney night gowns (because she claims there’s nothing in her size that’s appropriate) and stripped leggings to look more like a witch). Because magic and electronics don’t mix well, there are no computers; when talking to the librarian, it felt like Clarissa was almost mocking her about having an old-fashioned card catalog. When given an old book to study, she immediately starts using a highlighter on it, not bothering to check if she needs to return it, or if it’s a valuable old book. She also delibrately lies or misleads people for no appearant reason. One character thinks she looks familiar; rather than confessing who her mother is (which he is going to find out eventually), she lies. Later, when following a professor, she gets into trouble and has to be rescued. Rather than admitting that she was following the professor (which she might have a valid reason for doing), she lies to her rescuer - again for no apparent reason. There’s also a subplot of missing test answers that seems a bit contrived, existing only to raise the possibility of her not having a job next semester.
Despite all that, I did enjoy the book. By the end, I confess I was more interested in learning more about her mother and the background of some of the other teachers than I was her, but it was still entertaining, and I was still curious about what happened next. The preview chapter of the previous book sounds fun, too.
My recommendation: good for the beach, where the more annoying parts of the book are easier to overlook and forgive.
**I received a complementary pre-release copy of this book through Net Galley
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