Thursday, October 24, 2013

A review of The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy by Nikki Loftin.

                After Lorelei's school burned down a new one goes up in almost no time at all.  They think the school burned down because of a wiring issue, but her new teacher Miss Morrigan says something about leaving their ovens on.  (I can't remember if it says that it was wiring or ovens, but I would guess that Miss Morrigan had something to do with it whichever one it was.)   Lorelei's parents don't want to send her across town just to go to school, but what about the new one-Splendid Academy? 
                The school seems perfect-there are bowls of candy that magically refill themselves (awesome if they weren't fattening the kids up), the playground is amazing, the kids give themselves grades, and they can skip classes if they don't like them!  This school is perfectly splendid. 
                But there's a dark side to their new school.  Miss Morrigan teaches not one class, not two classes, but all the classes except music, and there's a secret to the sand.  It isn't what it looks like.  
                The characters in this book were very real.  The preteen girls acted exactly like how preteen girls would act in real life.  They use the same insults, talk about the same things, the girl named Alison even reminded me of someone I knew.  Even Lorelei's relationship with her older brother Bryan seems realistic.
                Lorelei's stepmother, Molly, is truly evil, but not magical.  If she had turned out to be magical I would have been really surprised.  At the wedding Molly was telling someone that she thought it was fate that Lorelei's mother died just so she could be part of their family.    That is an evil thing to say but you don't have to be magical to be nasty.
                In the beginning of the book, it hints at Lorelei's secret.  I immediately wanted to know what it was.  I even considered skimming the rest of the book to see what it was.  (I didn't, though.)  You'll just have to read it to find out for yourself. 
                Even thought this was a great book, it still had some flaws. 
                My mother gave me a new book to read when I was in the middle of this book.  The new book is way better than this one and I wanted to know more about the people from the new book than the ending of this one.  (I don't blame the book for this, though.  I blame my mother but I highly recommend The Ocean at the End of the Lane.) 
                Some people say that love is blind, and in Lorelei's case it was.  Principal Trap treated her better than Molly did, she seemed like she loved her, she seemed almost like a real mother.  Because of this, Lorelei didn't want to face the truth about her.  If it had been me, I would have guessed she was evil, not go back and forth about it. 
                The parents, even though they were told about what was happening at the school, didn't believe Lorelei.  Not that a parent would believe their child if their child were saying all kinds of weird things about their teachers being evil.  But wouldn't they at least wonder where they were getting all of these stories?

I would give this book four stars.  

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