Review of The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant

 
 I recently had the pleasure of reading the debut novel of Joanna Wiebe. This book combines the 3 most popular schemes in YA right now: school romance, the paranormal, and competition of life or death. This combination made the novel an interesting read, but it's not without its problems.

Page count: 272.
Genre: YA, romance, thriller.
Publisher: BenBella Books
Price: $9.99 on Amazon.

I picked up this book expecting a lightly mysterious boarding school romp like many others. The back of the book does a very poor job of preparing you for the truth: this book is not what it seems. Even when you think you have the plot pinned down, YOU DON'T. Even after the last page I was anticipating yet another plot twist to jump from the closed book, and explode into real life. It starts of normally: Anne Merchant is a pretty regular girl, aside from being the daughter of a mortician. She's a relatively typical teen by paranormal YA standards. Almost cliche. She is sent to a boarding school for the fabulously rich, but secrets are everywhere, and Ben Zin is the typical ominous paranormal hottie that comes standard with the genre. In yet another YA cliche, Anne is almost immediately confronted by a pack of hyper-sexy, hyper-bitchy teens. These girls bare a striking resemblance of the Plastics in Mean Girls. In fact, if Twilight and Mean Girls had a baby, and that baby mated with a boarding school romance, that pretty much sums up the novel for the first 60-ish pages. Entirely forgettable.

BUT WAIT.

This novel truly redeems itself, and it redeems itself quickly. I am fundamentally against spoilers, but let me say, the hidden side of the plot is a roller coaster of excitement, and when the gritty undercarriage of the beast makes its first appearance, all bets are off.

The plot twists, characters, and shocking secrets are utterly delectable. I would whole heatedly recommend this book to ANYONE. My one complaint is the length of the novel: it very much feels as though too much is crammed into too little, and the thrill ride rarely leaves room to catch the breath.

Do not pick up the Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant until you have a few hours to spare, because you will not want to leave it alone.