The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy

Publisher: Penguin (Razorbill)
Pages: 279
Publication Date: August 21, 2012
Type: ARC, for blog tour

When Lorelei's old school mysteriously burns down, a new one appears practically overnight: Splendid Academy. Rock-climbing walls on the playground and golden bowls of candy on every desk? Gourmet meals in the cafeteria, served by waiters? Optional homework and two recess periods a day? It's ever kids's dream. 

But Lorelei and her new friend Andrew are pretty sure it's too good to be true. Together they uncover the sinister mystery, one with their teacher, the beautiful Ms. Morrigan, at the very center. 

Then Andrew disappears. Lorelei has to save him, even if that means facing a past she'd like to forget – and taking on a teacher who's a real witch. 

What Lorelei and Andrew discover chills their bones – and might even pick them clean! 



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This book helped remind me why I still adore middlegrade.


It managed to be cute, sweet, genuinely emotional, and creepy, sometimes all within the span of a few pages.  In a YA novel, that'd be almost bizarre; but in here? Not in the slightest.  Children have such a fantastic array of emotions, and are so very capricious.  They can switch from delighted to horrified to curious within the span of minutes.  And they have this honest, black and white view of the world that has always fascinated me more than anything.  


At first, this tripped me up.  While some of the characters were wonderful and real and intensely likable--Lorelei, Andrew, even Brian, despite his jerkiness--some of them seemed to be flatly evil, with no redeeming traits to speak of.  But then I remembered something, something I suppose I'd forgotten in the many months between my last middlegrade read.  I remembered that simply because Lorelei perceived these people as purely awful did not mean they were, in actuality, evil incarnate; it was simply how she saw them.  Lorelei is not a little kid, but even at her age, children have this tendency to make things out in such a way that the world is easier to grasp.  There are blacks and whites, rights and wrongs, but there are no shades of gray.


I'd accepted this, so it came as a very, very pleasant surprise when Nikki Loftin showed me that Lorelei could see the shades of gray, at least a bit.


Even those characters that should be completely despicable, the ones you know you're supposed to hate, root against, hope for their demise, etc., were not the evil, mustache-twirling (hair-twirling, since they're female?) villains that one might find in a middlegrade book for the younger ages.  They were terrible, yes, and I was rooting for Lorelei to defeat them, yes, but there were these small moments, these small emotions, that made them so very real, despite the fantastic circumstances.


I adored that.  I adored every last character in here, but most of all, I adored Lorelei.  She was sweet and troubled and determined and far, far better than most MCs you'll find in YA today.  They could learn a thing or to from this girl, this eleven-year-old who loves her family and loves her friend and will do anything to save the people around her, no matter how they may act towards her.  

That's not the only thing I was fond of. I liked the writing, simple and smooth; I liked the plot, with its fast, even pacing that rushed me through this in less than a day; I liked the whole concept, completely creepy and completely original.  Granted, I guessed the main plot within the first 30 pages, but I do not fall within this book's intended audience.  I suspect that for the average 7-12 year old, the plot will be a wonderful mystery.

More than all this, though, the characters made the story.  Nikki Loftin has a real talent for creating characters that you can't help but love, and that, that guarantees I will read anything she writes, no matter the genre.

4.5 stars, but I loved the characters enough that it's being rounded to 5.

Anna Dressed in Blood

Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story. . .

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

I didn't know how I would feel about this one.  On the one hand, it had been receiving a lot of really positive reviews.  And the cover is absolutely and completely stunning (also a perfect depiction of Anna and her house).  But this is definitely not my usual genre, and I tend to be slightly mistrustful of the really gorgeous covers because they often conceal shoddy books.

I loved this.

I wasn't sure at first.  I think it's because I was so surprised.  The book seemed almost . . . chatty.  That was definitely not what I had been expecting.  I'd been expecting dark, gritty, haunting. I was thrown off.

But this is one of those books that just gets progressively better and better and when you finally finish the book you just sort of clutch it to your chest and ignore all the pointed stares aimed in your direction.

Like I said, this genre is outside my norm, but in the best of ways.  Despite the lighter atmosphere, this was still gory and creepy and awesome as hell.  It's an incredibly original idea, and the pacing was perfect--not too fast, not too slow, just enough foreshadowing and just enough of a shock factor when you figure everything out at the end.  Kudos to Blake for coming up with such a kickass plot in a market where romance has a tendency to take the reins.

I will say one thing: This book did not terrify me.  However, I think that's partially due to the inappropriate mood.  I read this primarily in school, during the day, surrounded by people, or at home, during the day, surrounded by people.  It's hard to believe in monsters when the sun's still out.  It's when you can no longer see them that they become real.

Blake's writing was very smooth.  Most of the time it was very informal; we were in Cas's head the entire time, with him as he wondered and agonized and, uh, slayed ghosts.  While the writing was usually fairly simple, it really shone when describing the ghosts, Anna in particular.  I could picture them perfectly, every frightening detail.

My favorite part of the book, though, would have to be the characters.  I really liked Cas.  He was much more . . . real than I thought he would be.  He wasn't some badass male version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (This comparison is actually made in the book--high five, Blake, high five); he was, quite simply, a real boy with real thoughts and real limitations who only became a macho killer with the athame in his hand.  Sometimes he seemed quite a bit younger than seventeen, but that didn't really bug me.  I liked all the side characters--Thomas, so awkward and eager; Cas's mother; Morfrand.  I loved Carmel and how well she defied the popular girl stereotype.

But I'm going to tell you what nearly all the other reviews have said: Anna stole the spotlight.

She was just . . . perfect.  Not perfect as in she herself was flawless; perfect as in her characterization was flawless.  As I read through the book, I just thought, If a girl was killed and turned into a murderous ghost for half a century, this is exactly what she would be like.  She was on the quiet side, but she had fight.  She was wracked with guilt, but she didn't let it stop her.  She was powerful and deadly and unsure, scared and curious and stubborn.  And I loved her to pieces.

That ending may or may not have made me bury my face in the book and shun people for a solid five minutes.  I cannot wait for Girl of Nightmares. 

5 stars.