Book Review: Hex Hall, by Rachel Hawkins

Book Review: Hex Hall, by Rachel Hawkins

Book Description from amazon.com: Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It’s gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie’s estranged father—an elusive European warlock—only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it’s her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, 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. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect.

Sophie Mercer is the protagonist of Hex Hall, a YA paranormal series which deals with witches and other supernatural creatures in an remote reform school for supernatural teens. She was a half-witch who lived in the human world but she had only been made aware of her power three years ago. She was later forced to go to Hecate Hall--a sanctuary for supernatural teens (namely: werewolves, fairies, witches, etc) to learn how to control her witch power after an incident of a love spell went wrong.

I found that Sophie is more delightful a character to be read about than many other boring, Mary Sue YA heroines. Sophie is a girl who has common sense, she also has a humorous voice going with her, and it worked for the benefit of storytelling when the book is narrated entirely by her first person viewpoint. She isn't annoying or hateful. Maybe I should have liked Sophie better but I simply don't. From time to time she sounds a bit too childish, trusting and airhead to my liking. Plus she acted careless and stupid during critical moments, which I found difficult to overlook.

There are three mean girls in the story...a little too many to my liking actually when none of these mean girls manage to stand out as character. Those mean girls are so purposeless and empty that it looks like they were mean only for the sake of being mean. (Isn't it a must that every single school fic needs to have mean girls in it!?) Plus the things they did hardly make any sense. First of all they had no reason to make Sophie's life hellish when they needed her help so badly. If I needed someone else's help, I wouldn't go "Obey me or else!" toward them like those mean girls did to Sophie. It'd have made so much more sense if those mean girls played nice in order to get Sophie cooperating with them.

Aside from the mean girls, we also got a bad boy, who is rough to Sophie on her first day. And of course later there' was a little something developing between them despite all the teasing and argument, and Sophie just couldn't seem to get the boy out of her mind...to make things worse, he had a date with one of the mean girls, who was so much, much prettier than Sophie!!!!

But well, to tell you the truth, I feel nothing for this 'done before, overused, nothing special' cliched teenage romance.

Aside from the romance with the bad boy and the battles between Sophie and the mean girls, the story's main focus is on the murder mystery of a witch student named Holly, who was drained of all of her blood while she happened to be the roommate of the school's only vampire student, Jenny. After Holly's death, suspicion naturally fell right onto Jenny's head but Sophie couldn't believe the vampire student (who now became her own roommate) was the real killer.
I like how the murder mystery is handled and how Sophie and her friends tried to solve the mystery  by using their brains and common sense while avoiding passing judgment on the wrong person. Plus I like Jenny a great deal. Though I must admit by the middle of the book, it isn't all that difficult to guess who is the real murderer.

*plot spoiler warning*

It's latter revealed that Elodie, the leader of the mean girls group, was actually responsible for the death of Holly, even though they didn't mean to kill her. But from start to end I never see Elodie and her sidekicks ever showed any hint of guilt, fear or regret for what they had done, not a tiniest bit of hint at all. Come on! So three teenage witches can act totally normal like nothing is out of place after they *stabbed* a fellow witch and saw her bleeding to death!? Are those teenagers really *that* cold-blooded and unfeeling? I found it difficult to believe in.

In the middle of the mess, Sophie met a ghost who turned out to be her great-grandmother's spirit, the ghost taught her how to use her magic and also gave her a wicked spell to get even with the mean girls. Need I say it here that it isn't a good sign when a 'friendly' ghost taught you how to take revenge on someone who's mean to you?

*end of spoiler*

As a whole, the story seems to follow the overused Harry Potter's underdog-turns-out-to-be-VIP formula. At first Sophie was kept in the dark about her witch-inheritance, she didn't know her power, but after she went to a magical high school she eventually realized she was not only magical, but also *special*. The headmistress and the teachers knew she was special, most of the students knew she was special, even her enemies knew she was special, but Sophie only learned she was special and why much later. That sounds a bit too wish-fulfilling to me.

I won't spoil the ending here, I would only say it's a descent ending, but it also leaves too big of a "READ THE SEQUEL!!" sign behind. To sum up, I want to like the book but I just don't, and I have to wonder why so many people had given the book their good remarks. I suggest you to borrow the book, and don't expect too much.