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bookcravings 's review for:
The Temple House Vanishing
by Rachel Donohue
The Temple House Vanishing was an atmospheric story that took place in the gothic setting of a crumbling all girls' school. You'll immediately feel bad for Louise, a student who gets her place there on merit and not because she can afford it and is described by her friend as a "social experiment".
Louise is content with the snubs of the elite girls who are the prefects, supposedly there to guide new students, but really to tattle and enforce the rules. But after she spies Victoria, an obvious rule breaker and nonconformist, she is bound to her for life. Throw into the mix Mr. Lavelle, the young, bohemian art teacher who is close enough to the line to occasionally step over it, and you have the makings of a tragic threesome.
Louise's idea of love is confounded with her feeling of loyalty and muddied by the lack of a solid parental background. So, when she tries to protect Victoria, things begin to backfire, and when we get to that part of the story you begin to see the author's plot device at work.
I would have liked to have had more of a character build for Mr. Lavelle, because even though we know the "type", we don't really know Mr. Lavelle. I would have also liked more focus on the reporter covering the story on its 25th anniversary, and on the current life of Victoria, although maybe it was purposeful that she was kind of a hollow shell. I think it would be more appropriate to label this as a YA book, since the topics (teenage girls, bullying, infatuation) fit that genre much better, but I still enjoyed it as a departure from my typical reads.
Thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for an advance reader's copy for review.
Louise is content with the snubs of the elite girls who are the prefects, supposedly there to guide new students, but really to tattle and enforce the rules. But after she spies Victoria, an obvious rule breaker and nonconformist, she is bound to her for life. Throw into the mix Mr. Lavelle, the young, bohemian art teacher who is close enough to the line to occasionally step over it, and you have the makings of a tragic threesome.
Louise's idea of love is confounded with her feeling of loyalty and muddied by the lack of a solid parental background. So, when she tries to protect Victoria, things begin to backfire, and when we get to that part of the story you begin to see the author's plot device at work.
I would have liked to have had more of a character build for Mr. Lavelle, because even though we know the "type", we don't really know Mr. Lavelle. I would have also liked more focus on the reporter covering the story on its 25th anniversary, and on the current life of Victoria, although maybe it was purposeful that she was kind of a hollow shell. I think it would be more appropriate to label this as a YA book, since the topics (teenage girls, bullying, infatuation) fit that genre much better, but I still enjoyed it as a departure from my typical reads.
Thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for an advance reader's copy for review.