Jeremy Whitley

Representation: Black characters
Trigger warnings: Bullying, near-death experience
Score: Six points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

Well. I found this in one of the two libraries I go to and I immediately picked it up but this is a special case where one library has this but the other wouldn't accept it due to two reasons, the content inside and that library has a filter and this would violate it. Now that I said that I noticed this was part of a series but I won't rush to finish it off considering I didn't enjoy this one at times which makes me not want to reread it either. The novel starts with the main character Frankie Jude Bryant or Frankie for short who lives a typical life right up until some catastrophic events happen for no reason at first glance until Frankie is sent to some place. Oh and there's gremlins here. Really. Frankie is then declared The Dog Knight by a bunch of dogs (weird, I know, but this is a fantasy novel after all) and Frankie now must take some tests to be an what I would call official Dog Knight which takes place throughout most of the book but especially the middle. The pacing was slow during this part but that let me explore who Frankie is as a person and also the antagonist got some character development as well which I liked. What I didn't like however was most of the characters, I couldn't connect to them for some reason but it might have to do with the way they are written and Frankie is hard to read at times since the book tells me Frankie is a specific gender and likes to tell me that again and again (I get it! You don't have to shove that message into me for so many times.) Also the shouting and loud dialogue and the time when Frankie admitted to disrespecting people? Irritating. I think Frankie also has character development to become a better person by overcoming things like bullying and becoming the official Dog Knight after passing all the tests which I enjoyed reading. The ending is a high note. Wow. The dogs were intriguing and likable I suppose.… (mais)

Having burned down their last school campus in a battle with the bad guys in the first issue, Tara, Misco, Summer, Kat and Zveni, along with all their classmates are being transferred in secret to The School for Extraterrestrial Boys. It’s located in an unusually warm spot in the arctic, the abandoned site of an unknown alien race complete with a mysterious lake and majestic castle used for the Boys School. The newly arrived female students are housed on the other side of the lake in cabins. It looks like an “American summer camp.” The girls are sent to find a cabin, eight girls and one chaperone per cabin, and prepare for the first evening’s social, where they will meet their male counterparts.

Needless to say, this will be where new friends will be made, and the seeds of a few romances will begin, but that’s not all. There’s an aloof instructor who takes a particular interest in Tara. The next day a class on Self-reflection and yoga will start putting the girls more in touch with themselves and more willing to share themselves with others. And there will be many dangerous secrets about the place that the girls discover, and spectacular obstacles and monsters to be overcome. It makes them wonder if this will be the next campus to go up in flames.… (mais)