Night School (Night School #1) Review

Night School (Night School #1)
by C.J. Daughtery
Genre: YA
Format: ARC received through Around the World ARC Tours in exchange for my honest opinion.  I do not get to keep a copy of the books.
Midnight Minute: Allie's parents send her to the mysterious Cimmeria Academy after Allie gets arrested... again.  But it's not the curriculum that's proving hard for Allie, it's staying alive.
Expected Publication: 05.21.13
From Goodreads:

Allie's world is falling apart...

She hates her school. Her brother has run away. And she's just been arrested.

Again.

Now her parents are sending her away to a boarding school where she doesn't know a soul.

But instead of hating her new school, Allie finds she's happy there. She's making friends. And then there's Sylvain, a suave French student who openly flirts with her. And Carter, the brooding loner who seems to have her back.

Soon, though, Allie discovers Cimmeria Academy is no ordinary school. Nothing there is as it seems. And her new friends are hiding dangerous secrets.

Midnight Thoughts:

~ This book was not what I thought it was going to be about, and I'm so thankful for that!  I was honestly a little worried it would be another House of Night or Vampire Academy type series, however Daugherty keeps things nice and mysterious. 
~ Since her brother disappeared,  Allie has been acting out, and after another arrest her parents ship her off to Cimmeria Academy. 
~ I really wish that I wasn't about to turn 36, or that there was a boarding school for adults, because ya'll, I would totally sign up to go! Cimmeria Academy is no Hogwarts, but it's somewhere, hidden, in England!
~ Bad sign: when the boarding school you're attending is in a secret location and there's no cell phones, iPods or laptops allowed.  That's right, Cimmeria Academy students should learn to be grateful just for electricity.  Actually, I kind of like this idea, because with today's instant media culture, no doubt there'd be tweets and youtube videos of all that mysterious "Night School" society.
~ The vast majority of the kids at the boarding school are legacy students, so Allie garners a lot of attention, speculation and her fair share of distrust for not being legacy.  
~ The Night School is, as explained to Allie, a secret group of "advanced" students.  Hmmkay...
~ Allie has to do detention in the cemetery that's on the school grounds.  That does not sound as horrifying to me as it might to some of my more "normal" readers. ;) 
~ There's two boys, the broody Carter and the charming Sylvain.  Guess which one is the main boy!
~ Carter is a scholarship student, as his now deceased parents worked for the school before they died.  Which adds to Carter's dark broodiness.  
~ Mysterious growling?  Human-sounding footsteps? How are we not thinking werewolf, Allie?!  Seriously, were-wolf.  The description you just gave of what chased you and Jo?  Text book definition of an effing werewolf!!
~ As the mystery deepens, I become aware of the fact that this book is not going to go down the normal YA Paranormal path.  Oh, no, readers, Daugtherty is going all Dan Brown on your butts!
~ Jo teaches Allie how to play chess in the common room, which makes Jo Allie's Ron.  So does that make Gabe her Hermione?  lol
~ Allie visits the school chapel, which has poetry in many languages decorating the walls.  Love that!! Sounds amazing. 
~ Uh, oh, Jo is acting weird.  Or not.  Really, Allie, we barely know this girl.
~ Yeah, that's the second time I spoke to the character like she could hear me.  This book made me do that several times, and I see no reason not to share that tidbit with you.  At times it was like, "No, Allie!  Don't go by yourself in the dark, deadly woods/attic/basement/etc!"  Sadly, she did not always listen to me. 
~ Even though I got the feeling immediately that Carter was endgame, there were several cute moments with Sylvain and Allie.  Until...
~  SPOILER (highlight to read): The author has Sylvain do something so completely awful that despite her best efforts is IRREDEEMABLE.  This really made me upset, because I liked his character, and while I expected him to be revealed to be a jerk, what he actually did should have had him down at the police station recovering from the beat down the cops gave him with their little sticks.   You can't come back from that.  Well, I guess you can, because I used to watch soap operas and two of my favorite male leads (Jack on Days, Todd on OLTL and GH) were magically cured rapists, but I don't think YA is the place for this. No, there's no rape, but Sylvain still does something very unforgivable.
~ There's so much tension between Sylvain and Carter throughout the book, which normally has my eyes rolling, but not so much in this book.  I got why she was attractive to both boys, and not everyone in school was trying to get in her pleated skirt (actually, I can't remember if she wore a pleated skirt as part of her school uniform, but you get my drift, right?).
~ There should be more kissing whilst pressed against walls in this world.  I promise there would be less wars and violence.  Possibly more babies and chapped lips, though...
~ I flip-flopped teams several times until the spoiler thing happened, and I still wish that hadn't happened.  Sigh. 
~ Skinny dipping is "wholesome" fun!  lol And I envision the CW is already in line to make this into a tv show. 
~ Oh, Allie.  I have panic attacks when I'm naked all the time. ;)
~ The dance does NOT GO AS PLANNED.  
~ So, the Night School was slowly revealed, and trust me peeps, it was not what I thought it was.  I felt a bit like Vizzini in The Princess Bride shouting, "Inconceivable!" and Daugherty was all like, "Midnight Book Girl, I do not think the Night School is what you think it is!" Well played, author, well played. 
~  I have lots more notes, but I can't share anymore with you without majorly spoiling the book.  Trust me though, this is like the Da Vinci Code for the YA set to a certain degree, maybe a bit more gothic, a bit less complicated.

Timeless Characters:

Allie- our heroine, reeling from her brother's disappearance and acting out, finds herself at a mysterious boarding school stuck between two hotties. 
Carter- Bachelor #1, step right up!  Broody, hot mess boy.  Only he's not that broody or hot mess-ish.  Secretive. 
Sylvain- French hottie, charming.  Carter is not his biggest fan, and the two boys are pages away of having a dance off for Allie's hand.  
Isabelle- the headmistress of Cimmeria Academy.
Christopher- Allie's missing brother.
Jo- Allie's first real friend at boarding school.
Gabe- Jo's boyfriend, possible a Night School member.
Katie- red-headed wenchy girl, hates Allie, wants Sylvain. 
Jules- prefect, friend to Katie.
Mr. Zelazny- history teacher (but he's pretty much the Mr. Filch of the story).
Lucas- Jo's ex, part of Allie's new friends.
Rachel- gossipy new friend
Lisa, Ruth, Phil- more friends.  Don't get attached. o.0
Eloise- the school librarian.
Mr. Ellison- I think he's the groundskeeper.  He oversees the cemetery detention. 
Clare- Carter's ex. 
Lucinda- mystery woman.
Nathaniel- mysterious mothereffer. 
Mark and Harry- Allie's London friends.  I've recorded their names, but you don't need to.  They are but a blip on the radar, my dears.  OR are they?  (see, Daugherty, I can mess with readers too! ;)
 

Midnight Moment:

I realized that some shiz would go down at the dance.  One expects that.  I did not expect the shiz storm that was unleashed.  Some of it bothered me (Sylvain) and some of it shocked me a bit because I didn't realize this book was going to be that... intense? 

Stop The Clock:

Is this a perfect book?  Nope.  There's a few bumps in the road to a full on Midnight Read, including some truly difficult suspensions of belief, characters acting outside of their established personalities, convenient information supplied by characters who previously had been barely mentioned the first 200 pages or so, BUT, there's promise here.  I really liked that the book surprised me.  I really liked that Allie didn't hold onto her whole "teenage rebel" thing that I figured would only continue at boarding school.  I'm very intrigued with where this book is going, and even though some mystery has been answered, there's lots more to be revealed!  I am in this one for the long haul.  


Goodreads also shows this as a possible cover:

But the ARC I was sent had the cover I include with the synopsis.  I probably prefer the top one, just because I think it invokes the mystery of the novel a bit more.  What do ya'll think?  

C.J. Daugherty — Website |C.J Daugherty 
So, book 2 is already out in the U.K.?  Um, need it!  Plus that cover is Ah-mazing. 

Night School (Night School #1) gets a Midnight Book Rating of: 

Let the Devil Sleep Review

From Goodreads

Let the Devil Sleep
by John Verdon
From Goodreads:

In this latest novel from bestselling author John Verdon, ingenious puzzle solver Dave Gurney puts under the magnifying glass a notorious serial murder  – one whose motives have been enshrined as law-enforcement dogma - and discovers that everyone has it wrong.
 
The most decorated homicide detective in NYPD history, Dave Gurney is still trying to adjust to his life of quasi-retirement in upstate New York when a young woman who is producing a documentary on a notorious murder spree seeks his counsel.  Soon after, Gurney begins feeling threatened: a razor-sharp hunting arrow lands in his yard, and he narrowly escapes serious injury in a booby-trapped basement.  As things grow more bizarre, he finds himself reexamining the case of The Good Shepherd, which ten years before involved a series of roadside shootings and a rage-against-the-rich manifesto.  The killings ceased, and a cult of analysis grew up around the case with a consensus opinion that no one would dream of challenging  -- no one, that is, but Dave Gurney. 

Mocked even by some who’d been his supporters in previous investigations, Dave realizes that the killer is too clever to ever be found.  The only gambit that may make sense is also the most dangerous – to make himself a target and get the killer to come to him.

To survive, Gurney must rely on three allies: his beloved wife Madeleine, impressively intuitive and a beacon of light in the gathering darkness; his de-facto investigative “partner” Jack Hardwick, always ready to spit in authority’s face but wily when it counts; and his son Kyle, who has come back into Gurney’s life with surprising force, love and loyalty.

Displaying all the hallmarks for which the Dave Gurney series is lauded -- well-etched characters, deft black humor, and ingenious deduction that ends in a climactic showdown – Let the Devil Sleep is something more: a reminder of the power of self-belief in a world that contains too little of it.

Midnight Thoughts 

~Every time I read a thriller like this one, I ask myself, why do I read any other type of genre? 

~Although this is the third novel in the series, it was my first.  Before I started this blog reading a series out of order would not have happened on purpose.  I've since discovered that when the author is good, and knows what s/he is doing, it doesn't hurt the reading experience.

~ John Verdon managed to catch me up and make me as invested in the main character as I would have been if I'd already read the first two books.

~Main character, retired NYPD Dave Gourney, is a little bit older than most thriller's mcs (that I read), but he's also a little bit wiser, a little bit more warped by all the things he's been through in his long years.  And you know I like my characters with a little damage.

~Gourney is still dealing with injuries he received from the previous novel.  He didn't magically heal both physically and mentally, and it's made him a little grumpy.  Not quite to the level of Hugh Laurie in House, but Gourney is definitely not a Positive Polly right now.

~The supporting characters help this book, and Gourney, so much.  His wife, Madeline, is a saint and they actually have a good relationship, even if it's a bit strained right now.  So many books with cops, retired cops, detectives, etc, feature fractured, damaged relationships.  Although...

~Gourney's son joins in the mystery, and there is a some distance between him and his father.  But they both love each other so much, and its so obvious. 

~The entire time I was reading this book, I couldn't help but picture it as a tv series or movie.  If I can connect actors to book characters then it means I'm thinking a lot about the book.  This is always a good thing. 

~Gourney's friend Hardwick is easily my favorite character, mostly because I pictured him as Adam Baldwin (from Chuck and Firefly).   I want a friend on the force like Hardwick for the next time someone in traffic makes me mad. 

~I also pictured Gourney as Stellan Skarsgård, thus allowing me to picture his son as Alexander Skarsgård .  This is always a winning combination.  Plus there is a lot more potential in the father/son dynamic in this series, so I'm sticking with it.

~Kim was annoying.  I didn't really like her, and I found her character hard to understand.  She's like the chick in a horror movie that refuses to move out of a house even though she hears noises in the attic.  Eventually I was kind of rooting for the bad guy to get her. 

~However, I did think her idea to interview the family's of the victims of the Good Shepard to be a good idea. Too often tv and news reports on murders and focuses on the killer.  The victims often get lost, and their families definitely are largely ignored by the media. 

~I really liked the killer in the book.  It was creepy, how smart, how invasive he was. 

~I didn't like that The Good Shepard went after people in luxury cars.  I myself would like to own one someday and not get shot while driving it.

~The whole theory that The Good Shepard is murdering rich people in order to bring attention to his political beliefs was a bit unsettling considering the current political climate.  That aspect alone would make this a good book to discuss in book clubs, a rarity among thrillers.  Way to bring the social issues elements, John Verdon!

~I didn't figure the killer out until near the very end, and even then I wasn't sure until the reveal.  This book truly kept me in suspense. 

Let the Devil Sleep gets a Midnight Book Rating of:

**Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book by Wunderkind PR in exchange for my honest review.  All opinion, snark and wit are my own, and in this case, shaped by the thousands of hours of Criminal Minds, Deadly Women and Law & Order: SVU I have watched over the years, and am probably watching right now as you're reading this**