Really Ravishing Review (The School for Dangerous Girls)

Review of The School for Dangerous Girls, by Eliot Schrefer.
 

Quickie: Surprisingly suspenseful, and completely infuriating. (In a good way)

Full: Angela has been deemed a "dangerous" girl. Her parents are done putting up with her, so they send her off to Hidden Oak, a reform institution in Middle-of-Nowhere, Colorado. Immediately it becomes clear that this is no ordinary school- it's more like a prison. A prison with a dictatorship and terrible mind games. Angela and the other new students have to go through a month-long "orientation" period, during which they discover video cameras throughout the school and that they get locked into their dorm rooms every night. The more Angela discovers, the clearer it is that she must escape.


The School for Dangerous Girls really took me by surprise. A little slow to get started, but only because things needed to be set up. Once the foundation was laid, however, the story took off. Angela is an interesting character... but she doesn't hold a candle to some of the other "dangerous girls". They're creepy and cruel and some are downright evil. I'm glad Angela wasn't one of those types because I would have had a tougher time understanding her.

As it was, I pretty much liked her. I didn't feel like she really deserved to be in such a crazy-messed-up place, and I really hated how they continuously said that this school was the very last chance any of the girls would get in life. They're young! They can always change. Humph. I hated the "they're hopeless" attitude that a lot of the faculty had. And whoa, nothing the staff did was legal. I was pleasantly infuriated multiple times. The unfairness and heavy-handedness was just horrible. (By pleasantly, I mean as much as I was upset, I was glad to be feeling something for the characters and wanting to help them)

I was honestly surprised how much I enjoyed the book. It was more suspenseful and creepy than I had anticipated. I was afraid it wouldn't end well, since there were only a few pages left and big things were still happening, but Schrefer somehow managed it. Overall, The School for Dangerous Girls was very entertaining.

4 out of 5 stars.