Book Review: Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

About a month ago, I ran into a friend I haven't seen since she graduated/I went to Australia. We caught up, chatting about books and such. I mentioned that I was usually disappointed with the Young Adult novels I've read, at which point she said, "Oh my god, read Hex Hall!! It's so awesome! Here, read the blurb right now; I have a picture of it on my phone."

I was intrigued, so I requested the ebook from the library. I got the file a few days ago. I devoured the book. It's a quick, fun read that does have teenage angst, but not annoying amounts of it. The relationship-angst doesn't take over the rest of the plot (thankfully!). My only complaint, having just finished its sequel (but that's for a later day), is that there are clear areas where Hawkins could have developed the characters a little bit more in Hex Hall (IE: in Book 2, Hawkins refers to things that weren't in the text of Book 1, but very well could have been).

Things that made me giggle:

• References Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence

“Archer?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. Hey, you might be able to take away my magical powers, but the power of sarcasm was still at my disposal. “Is your last name Newport or Vanderbilt? Maybe followed by some numbers? Ooh!” I said, widening my eyes, “or maybe even Esquire!” (21)

References Edgar Allen Poe's "Cask of Amontillado":

I should say upfront that I have never been in a cellar in my life. In fact, I can see no reason why anyone should ever go into a cellar unless there is wine involved. (159)

Poking fun at horror genre conventions (vampires, in this case):

The “Holy-crap-that’s-a-lot-of-pink” Zone would have been a more accurate description. I don’t know what I was expecting a vampire’s room to look like. Maybe lots of black, a bunch of books by Camus . . . oh, and a sensitive portrait of the only human the vamp had ever loved, who had no doubt died of something beautiful and tragic, thus dooming the vamp to an eternity of moping and sighing romantically. What can I say? I read a lot of books. But this room looked like it had been decorated by the unholy lovechild of Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake. (33)

Hawkins also references pop culture, which I find so refreshing. A lot of paranormal books I've read like to pretend Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Star War/Star Trek never happened.

"So if you can heal with your touch, why are you working here as like, Hagrid, or whatever?" (199)

And snarky-amusing inner dialogue because, honestly, who isn't going to think this?

“Hey, no problem,” I said, even though all I could think was, Slobber! Werewolf slobber! On my skin! (103)

This may not be a reference to the videogame Portal, but it should be:

Jenna gave me a sympathetic look and cleared our empty plates. “Sorry in advance for what you’re about to see.”

“What?” I asked as the dining hall began to empty. “What’s going to happen?”

Jenna shook her head. “Let’s just say you may regret that second piece of cake.”

Oh my God. Regret cake? Whatever was about to happen must be truly evil. (69)

And we have teenage girls who obviously have no idea how teenage boys work:

"...if Archer had to be stuck in the basement with any girl at this school, I'm positively thrilled it's Sophie Mercer [our heroine]. Archer wouldn't look at her twice." ...

“She does have big boobs,” Anna mused.

Elodie just snorted at that. “Please, Anna. Big boobs are not enough to compensate for being short and plain. And that hair!” (207)

I was going to point you all to my twitter feed (topix #HexHall) to see my amusing tweets about it, but twitter has decided not to play nice. If you really must (or have something to procrastinate on), you can scroll through my twitter feed until you get to November 24. But only do this if you have absolutely nothing better to do. Honest.