I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins Series: School Spirits #1
Published by Disney Hyperion on May 14, 2013
Genres: Contemporary YA, Horror & Ghost Stories, Paranormal YA, Young Adult
Pages: 297
Format: eARC
Source: the publisher via NetGalley
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Fifteen-year-old Izzy Brannick was trained to fight monsters. For centuries, her family has hunted magical creatures. But when Izzy’s older sister vanishes without a trace while on a job, Izzy’s mom decides they need to take a break.
Izzy and her mom move to a new town, but they soon discover it’s not as normal as it appears. A series of hauntings has been plaguing the local high school, and Izzy is determined to prove her worth and investigate. But assuming the guise of an average teenager is easier said than done. For a tough girl who’s always been on her own, it’s strange to suddenly make friends and maybe even have a crush.
Can Izzy trust her new friends to help find the secret behind the hauntings before more people get hurt?
Rachel Hawkins’ delightful spin-off brings the same wit and charm as theNew York Times best-selling Hex Hall series. Get ready for more magic, mystery and romance!
Reading a book by Rachel Hawkins is bound to be heaps of fun, friends. She’s got the teenage witchy humor down to a science, and her gifts of both producing laughs and weaving fast-paced paranormal tales with the perfect, light doses of drama and intrigue are on display in SCHOOL SPIRITS, the first book in a new spin-off series to Hex Hall. At the end of that series, we were introduced to the Brannicks, a family of ass-kicking, demon-hunting women, and whoever had the good sense to give them their own series should get a big piece of chocolate cake, because SCHOOL SPIRITS is a straight-up good time.
SCHOOL SPIRITS shines a spotlight not just on the Brannicks as a unit, but on Izzy, the youngest, in particular. Her older sister, Finn, whom Izzy both looks up to and compares herself to, has gone missing while soloing on a hunt. Izzy’s mom has seemingly run out of avenues to search for Finn so she takes Izzy to a new town, where she enrolls her youngest in the local high school. But Brannicks being Brannicks, there’s more to this than meets the eye: turns out the high school is haunted, and Izzy’s mom wants her to get to the bottom of it, kind of as a test of her solo skills. She makes friends, crushes on boys, and strives to make her own mark.
To me, the real stand-out of SCHOOL SPIRITS is Izzy. She’s got great personality, and she’s easy to like. She’s smart, but feels coddled by her mother. Like most teenage girls, Izzy is itching for independence. In Brannick-world, this means getting to hunt Prodigium (you know, Rachel Hawkins-speak for demons and ghosts and such) on her own, which is why she takes the task of getting to the bottom of the ghost of Mary Evans High so seriously. I will always get behind girls who crave independence and have go-getter attitudes, and Izzy’s got both of those in spades.
I’m also totally intrigued by Izzy’s relationship with Dex. Well, I’m totally intrigued by Dex. He’s DEFINITELY got some SEKRETS that I’m sure will create drama and issues down the road. For all that I’m interested in Dex and Izzy and where their fledgling relationship is headed after SCHOOL SPIRITS, I’m just as invested in Torin, the 400-year-old warlock trapped in one of the Brannick’s mirrors. I’ve wanted to know more about him and how he got trapped in that mirror since we first met him in the last Hex Hall book. Izzy was a little clueless about him, I thought, but that just adds to the tension. There’s a triangle a-brewing, friends! (At least I think there is, so if that’s not your jam, there’s an FYI for you.)
The weakest aspect of SCHOOL SPIRITS, to me, is the mystery. It wasn’t bad, but Rachel Hawkins does the relationships and the kissing and the family dynamics better here. There’s very little surprising about the ghost haunting the school. And, to be honest, the ending was a little bit meh, but I was really enjoying myself so much that it’s hard to find a lot of fault.
As always, the world that Rachel Hawkins has constructed, first in Hex Hall and now in SCHOOL SPIRITS, is full of secrets and danger and supernatural goodness. As the book progresses, Aislinn Brannick (that’s the mom) investigates her eldest daughter’s disappearance, but there’s lots left to explore there. I have a feeling, too, that we’ll be seeing Sophie from the Hex Hall books again, too.
All in all, Rachel Hawkins knows what she does best and she does it well in SCHOOL SPIRITS. Her books have such a great voice: lots of humor and zing. The Brannick women are complete BAMFs; it’s a shame that there are only the three of them left. I’m confident that when book 2 (whatever it’s called, whenever it comes out) will build on the great characters, complicated relationships, and the mysterious disappearance of Finley Brannick, and Rachel Hawkins will have given us another gem.
Check out some other reviews of School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins!
Anya @ On Starships and Dragonwings: “School Spirits is a perfect book for those who are addicted to school settings with a supernatural twist.”
Heidi @ Bunbury in the Stacks: “For me, the greatest aspect of Hawkins’ School Spirits is that it was romping good fun while still managing to be completely unpredictable.”
I’ve never read any of these books from the Hex Hall series nor this one, but I will say that they have some of the funnest covers out there!