Some of you might remember I had the book The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant as one of the books I was looking forward to for 2014.
I finished it over the weekend - and guys, it was awesome.
Basic overview without spoilers (which is actually really hard to do):
Anne Merchant is a junior in high school living in California, and is the daughter of a funeral director. (Hey, girl, hey! Me too! Although she knew way more about death and funerals than I do and her classmates teased her cause of it, and all of my friends thought it was awesome.) Anyways, he sends her away to this ritzy boarding school on the East coast that is on an island. Let's just say, this school is messed up. It's freaky, the teachers are awful and innapropriate, and they students are highly competive. Think Chilton from the TV show Gilmore Girls but on steroids. If Paris had randomly shown up in the book I would not have been surprised. This school is right up her alley.
However, there are a ton of secrets at this school and a full out She's All That 90's rom-com movie dance off. Not even joking.
As the story goes on, Anne finds herself in the midst of some really crazy happenings, insane rules, and realizing this school isn't what she thought it was.
My thoughts:
The first half of the book, I wasn't all that impressed. I loved the premise and it seemed really interesting, but it was confusing and I felt like the execution wasn't that great. But then - BUT THEN- I got to the second half and all of the sudden everything started to fall into place. I even put together some of the pieces before Anne did and I was really proud of myself. Once I got through the half way point I couldn't put this book down because I had to know what happened and things kept twisting and turning and just... WOW. I loved it. Now, I'm mad that I have to wait another year for the second book to come out because it leaves you on a cliffhanger. Although I will say, Anne wasn't the greatest protagonist. There were moments she was kind of idiotic and I wanted to hit her on the head.
I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads, but it should probably be more like 3 1/2 because the first half of the book wasn't all that great but I loved the second half and through the whole thing I liked the premise.
I received my copy of this novel as an eARC free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
It's awesome that we both had similar experiences with this book. It's OK but a little weird and then OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS :) I loved watching you finish it on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteHaha. I'm glad you enjoyed that.
DeleteNice review! Sounds like a pretty good book :)
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