Book Review: School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins

Hello All! Today I am going to share my review for School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins. This is the spin off book to the Hex Hall series. After I read Hex Hall it became one of my favorite series so I definitely had to pick up the spin off book. I will post the summary from below and then share my thoughts on this book.

Summary from Goodreads:

Fifteen-year-old Izzy Brannick was trained to fight monsters. For centuries, her family has hunted magical creatures. But when Izzy’s older sister vanishes without a trace while on a job, Izzy's mom decides they need to take a break.

Izzy and her mom move to a new town, but they soon discover it’s not as normal as it appears. A series of hauntings has been plaguing the local high school, and Izzy is determined to prove her worth and investigate. But assuming the guise of an average teenager is easier said than done. For a tough girl who's always been on her own, it’s strange to suddenly make friends and maybe even have a crush.

Can Izzy trust her new friends to help find the secret behind the hauntings before more people get hurt? 






So in this spin off book to Hex Hall, the main character is Izzy Brannick. We learned in Hex Hall, that Izzy is Sophie's cousin and Sophie's mom is sister to Aislinn Brannick (Izzy's mom). The Brannicks are descended from powerful white witches, but they have no magic left and they are also Prodigium hunters. Since meeting Sophie and since there are very few Brannicks left, they don't hunt prodigium anymore but rather help keep them in control and send them to the council for punishment. In this book, Izzy's older sister Finley goes missing, and Izzy's mom moves them to a new town so Izzy can do smaller assignments and go to high school to have a somewhat normal life.

So first I want to say that this book was nowhere near as good as the Hex Hall series was. Not even close. I had a really hard time getting into this one, where the hex hall books have you hooked right away. I tried really hard not to compare everything in this book to the things in Hex Hall, but I really couldn't stop myself. When a series is really great, I think the spin offs have a lot to live up to and this book just didn't do it for me. Overall I was really disappointed it in.

While I loved all of the characters in the Hex Hall series, I did not love any in this book. Most of them were bland and boring, even all of the love interests. I liked Izzy okay, but she wasn't as fun to read from as Sophie was. However, I do think there was a little bit of good character development with Izzy, and if there is more books in the series I can see that there will be more progression with her.

The plot for this book was really boring to me. It took the whole book for things to happen and to get to the point of everything. And then when you finally do get to that point, it wasn't even exciting. Reading Hex Hall, there was always so much excitement and action going on. There were a lot of twists and turns, and I couldn't put it down. This book I kind of dreaded reading because it was that boring. I think this book could have had a lot of potential and could have been a lot better than it was. I'm not sure if there is going to be more books in the series, but if there is I will probably pick them up and hope they are better than this one was. I had really high hopes for this book and it was kind of a let down because I loved Hex Hall so much!

This is all for my review, I ended up giving it a 3/5 stars on goodreads because it wasn't horrible, it was just okay. Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

June 2013 Wrap Up

Hello all! Today I am going to do my June Wrap up post for the books that I read last month. I can't believe it's already July! This summer is really going quickly for me. I was able to read 3 books last month in June. I also started reading the second book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, I did not finish because it is a really long book so that took up a little bit of my reading time.

Prodigy by Marie Lu was the first book that I read last month. I enjoyed this book alot and thought it was a great sequel to Legend. I am really excited for the next book in the series to come out! You can read my review for Prodigy here.











Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins was the second book I read. This is the first book in the Hex Hall series and one that I had on my to read list on goodreads for a while but I forgot about it. I was in the mood for a good fantasy book so I decided to pick this one up and I really loved it. Not only is it fantasy, but one of the main focuses in this series is on witches and witchcraft which I loved also. This book was great and if you have not read this series yet, it's one that I recommend! You can also read my review for this book here.




Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins is the last book that I read in June. This is the second book in the Hex Hall series. After finishing Hex Hall, I had to go out and purchase the rest of the books in the series. I enjoyed Demonglass just as much as Hex Hall and this series quickly became one of my new favorites. Both of the books were really great reads and I read them both really fast. I can't wait to start the last book called Spell Bound, and also the authors spin off series School Spirits as well!





This is all for my June Wrap up post. I have not had much time to read lately and I am trying to catch up on my huge TBR pile that just keeps growing! I hope you all enjoyed and Happy Reading!