Review: Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

by Kay | Jan 9, 2015 | Reviews | 1 comment

Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It's gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie's estranged father„an elusive European warlock„only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it's her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

I expected a lot from Hex Hall. I thought it would be funny and smart and a warm, cosy, awesome read. So maybe my expectations were set a bit too high… because while I enjoyed it? I am not sure I’ll be running out to buy book 2.

Let’s start off with the good things: I LOVED the boarding school aspect. Call it a symptom of a Harry Potter generation, but there is nothing in the world I enjoy more than the teenagers-dealing-with-important-things-at-school!trope. Hex Hall had plenty of that and, I admit, that was a blast.

While I would have liked to have stayed in class, Hex Hall was far more focussed more on the extracurricular elements of the school. There was a pretty good mystery keeping the plot rolling (A murderer is loose! Is it my roommate? She does drink blood! Whatever shall we do?!). I found myself quite invested in protecting BFF!Vampire!Jenna. Her determination to stay as human as possible despite the horrible things that have happened to her… it was quite inspiring.

But where the book really let me down was in the romance department. We are introduced to standard bad-boy Archer early on, and while Sophie starts out hating him she gives up on that unfortunately quickly. Oh! And now that she has a crush? He’s taken. Of course he is.

I am sick to death of the “I love him but his girlfriend is a bitch!” set-up. It drives me up the wall. Either your One True Love is as perfect as you think, in which case there is probably something awesome about his girlfriend you don’t know about – or he really is the jerkface he plays and they deserve each other. I am NOT a fan of reading about girls hating each other over some guy. Not to mention the fact that Archer is so, so not worth an iota of swooning.

Bottom line? Hex Hall is a fun, quick read – but the love triangle thing really bothered me. I may pick up book 2 someday… maybe.