Book Review: Hex Hall

Book: Hex Hall (Hex Hall book #1) by Rachel Hawkins

Cover Design by Jennifer Jackman
Cover Photo by Brian Doben (model) and Corbis (forest)

Edition: Paperback

Description:

On Her 12th Birthday, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. Three bumpy years later, after a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, she's exiled to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

By the end of her first day, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Then when a mysterious predator begins attacking students, and Sophie's only friend is the number-one suspect, a horrifying plot begins to surface. Soon, Sophie is preparing for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.



Rating: 5 stars

Review:

Hex Hall was a good read, it was well-written, exciting and fast-paced with a few twists. The story follows 15 years old witch Sophia "Sophie" Mercer, who after casting a disastrous love spell for a school mate at the prom, found herself attending a special boarding school, Hecate Hall for supernatural beings (faeries, werewolves, witches, shapeshifters and vampires). The school which is isolated in Georgia, is nicknamed Hex Hall by the students, is half regular school and half reform school. Because the only reason the students end up at Hex Hall is because they either did something bad or dangerous or something that risked the supernatural world being exposed.

Sophie really didn't want to attend Hex Hall but she doesn't seem to have a good control or understanding of her powers. Whenever she cast spells, they don't seem to turn out right and being at this school should help. Because unlike the students at the school, Sophie didn't grow up in a supernatural/magical home. She was raised by her human mother who is a teacher of Religious Studies, Mythology and Folklore. She did her best by providing Sophie with books as a way to help her understand being a witch and the supernatural world. And despite all the information she read, it wasn't enough to prepare her. Although her father is a warlock, she's never met him.

Arriving at the school, Sophie was nearly attacked by another student, Justin who was a werewolf. For some reason Justin was running towards her but that attacked was surprisingly averted due to another student, warlock Archer Cross. The attack caught Sophie off guard and she couldn't think of a spell to help her. Archer's dismissive snarky attitude made Sophie feel less grateful for his help. I think if he hadn't been so rude, she would have simply thanked him. But I guess him being slightly antagonistic and not to mention being really cute just added to her annoyance of trying not to like him.

She had better luck meeting her roommate vampire Jennifer "Jenna" Talbot who I would describe as a combination of Wednesday characters Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair for her personality and love of bright colors especially the color pink. There was an incident at the school last year that many of the students believe Jenna had something to do with it. Jenna's last roommate Holly, a witch, was found dead and drained of blood and being a vampire she was considered the prime suspect. However, Jenna was cleared of this but that still didn't stop the other students from continuing to blame her or look at her with suspicion. But Sophie isn't going to let other student's opinions stop her from getting to know Jenna.

New roommate situation aside, Sophie immediately got on the bad side of three mean girl witches: Anna Gilroy, Chaston Burnett and Elodie Parris who wanted her to join their coven. But Sophie was hesitant to join. Not only is she's still new to learning about the supernatural world but it felt like they were pressuring her to join them. There was a second attempt of them trying to get her to join their coven later in the story that also didn't go well. After two attempts, the already mean girls became even meaner to Sophie and they weren't the only mean ones she had to deal with. The Physical Education teach Ms. Vanderlyden (secretly nicknamed The Vandy by students) didn't seem to like Sophie either. Someone that did seem to have an interest in Sophie was a strange ghost that kept showing up. Sophie also seems to be getting closer to Archer but him dating one of the mean girl witches was helping to put a damper on her growing crush.

While still trying to get used to her new school, Sophie unfortunately found one of her classmates nearly dead in the girl's bathroom. What makes things worse is that Jenna is yet again seen as the prime suspect because the girl's blood was nearly drained. Despite being cleared yet again, Jenna was still seen as a threat. Sophie not believing that Jenna did it was trying to figure out who it was. However, a second attack on a student in the same manner made Jenna yet again the prime suspect and this time she was removed from the school along with a teacher that was a vampire. But just because Jenna and the teacher were vampires doesn't mean either one of them were attacking students. Which is why Sophie was trying to figure out who was behind those attacks.

I really enjoyed this story, Sophie's first year at Hex Hall was full of fun, magic, a little romance and a lot of danger. There were a lot of interesting things happening and several secrets being uncovered and being told. And things were definitely not what they seemed to be. Throughout most of the story, one of the main mysteries is "Who is attacking the students?" Was it Jenna or someone else? Thankfully that question got answered and then some because Sophie learned quite a bit about the supernatural world, herself and her family as well. As excellent as Hex Hall is, the first book ends on a cliffhanger. But it does make me interested in reading the second book.