When I requested The Castle School (for troubled girls) I thought it was going to be a mystery novel. Something along the lines of Maureen Johnson or Karen McManus. However, that wasn’t what I got from this book, and as I write this review, I struggle to put into words what this book did right, and what I think I struggled with. I don’t think there is inherently anything wrong with this book overall. The blurb and summary of it is highly misleading, and I would never have requested it, had it been blurbed what it was really about, so I suppose that was my main issue.
This book is not about a mystery, it is about a group of “troubled” girls and their illnesses. This book covers all sorts of mental illnesses. This book is probably going to be very triggering for some people, so if eating disorders, ocd, self-harm or anything like that is a trigger: stay away. This book is very intense in all those aspects. Even for me this book was a bit of a struggle as I read it. There are also mentions of death and sickness, so this book was really heavy. Not at all light like the blurb suggested.
Moving past that, the book itself was actually good. I will say I thought the beginning was really slow, and I was very confused because I had expected something different. Yet, once we get into the meat of the story, and start learning about Moira and her past, things become clearer. This doesn’t have much of an action plot, but is instead totally character driven. Very little actually happens in this book. There is a lot of talking.
Speaking of the characters there are a bunch, and it can be kind of confusing, since many of them didn’t really play a huge part in the book, but the characters we do meet are a diverse cast. And I liked that about the book. All of them were a little bit unique. The other thing that I liked was the romance was toned down in this. I felt that if the romance had played a bigger part it might have undermined what I thought the focus of the book was.
In any case, I did struggle with the pacing a bit, but when I got to the end, I admit I did cry a bit. It was actually quite a moving an emotional book, which surprised me, because I wasn’t expecting that. I thought since it wasn’t what I expected I was not going to enjoy it so much. I think this is a solid book, but just be prepared when you go in, that it isn’t much like what the blurb says at all.

That felt like a punch right into my heart (in a good way). I wasn´t sure what the book was about while going in, I just knew it was about a castle where troubled girls lived at. However they´re not troubled, they just have problems but they´re trying their best, like everyone.
This book deals with hard sensitive topics such as mental illness, grief, death, self harm, eating disorders... and they were handled in such a respectful and raw way. We got to see a glance of each girl´s minds and it´s heartbreaking going inside their heads, learning what they know about life and their own circumstances of why they were sent to the school.
It doesn´t really have a plot, and the characters are just somehow important. I think the main goal of the book lays in the problems and solutions. In feelings and thoughts of how we learn to move forward despite pain. It allows us to stand back and think about life and I really appreciated that.
Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange of a review.

This book is about a girl named Moira who is struggling with her grief after the death of her best friend. She is sent away to Castle School in hopes that she will finally begin to improve. She is there with 11 other girls who all have their own issues. Something I loved about this book is that each girl gets a dedicated chapter where we learn about what brought them to Castle School from their own perspective and not just hearing secondhand as Moira does. However, these chapters (and this book) could potentially be triggering for readers who struggle with any variety of self harm, including eating disorders.

In this book, Moira quickly discovers that there is another Castle School for boys a short distance away and begins sneaking out to it at night with her roommate as she becomes more suspicious about the motivations of Dr. Prince, the man who runs the school for girls. All the while, she is haunted by the death of her friend and struggling to let others into her life. I found myself crying while reading this book as I related to Moira more than I expected, since I have not felt the same grief that she has. Overall, this book was a really good read but at times fairly upsetting so readers should go into it prepared for that.

An interesting reimagining of a fairytale where grief, mental illness and the bonds one can make with other lost souls ties together 12 dancing girls.

“The Castle School for Troubled Girls” follows Moira as she’s shipped off to a remote school following the death of her best friend. While trying to navigate this new normal she and her roommate find an unlocked window and the sound of music drifting from the woods encouraging them to explore.

I have to start by saying that I’m a case worker at an mental health clinic so a lot of the moments explored with each girl concerning how they came to be at the school and the approaches Dr. Prince used to help them were absolutely fascinating and I found myself wanting to take notes on some of the techniques to use myself. Each girl was given a chapter to show their struggles and the thinking behind some of their more harmful actions and while it may be unsettling I think they way it is articulated is very powerful and shows the complicated dynamic with mental health and that it is something that takes a long time to manage and even then there may be set backs.

The set up of 12 Dancing Princesses was great and I found myself wondering if this would venture into fantasy but I’m glad it managed to stick within the realms of reality and I am starting to realize this might be my new favorite fairytale for ya retellings as there’s so much you can do with it and this book took advantage of each and every opportunity.

This book does discuss mental illness and contains themes that may trigger others and though I’m not certain if there will be an official warning I am available to discuss those with anyone looking to read this book beforehand.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

#TheCastleSchool
#MustReadYA2021
#MentalHealthYA
A book that young adults can relate to about mental health and losing someone you love. I felt that the author brought young adult feeling into the book front and center. Teens struggle so much and I would defiantly recommend this read.

The Castle School is a book that I was provided vie NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. I think this book was so thoughtfully written. I don’t personally have experience with most of the mental illnesses that are highlighted. This book talks about depression, self-harm, grief, eating disorders, alcoholism, OCD, selective mutism, drug addiction, and others. So, if any of these are triggers for you, maybe skip this one, but I think the author did an incredible job of thoughtfully talking about these topics.
The story follows Moira as she’s dealing with the loss of her best friend Nathan. Nathan was diagnosed with cancer and died. Since then, she sneaks out at night to visit his grave, she skips school, but the final straw for Moira’s mother was the tattoo. She’s sent to The Castle School, which is a school for troubled girls where the schooling is different and Dr. Prince is there for one on one therapy sessions. Moira is full of grief that she won’t let out. I really enjoyed her growth and development in this story. She fights when she first gets to the school, thinking that she has no need to be there. But as she grows and makes friends, she opens up a bit. I couldn’t help but believe all of Moira’s wild theories about the two Dr. Prince’s one she discovers the second Castle School (for boys). I liked her and I could really sympathize with her.
I also liked the side characters. They were all unique and interesting. I really liked that we got little background stories for some of the characters. A few got their own chapters that were about when it was decided that they would be going to The Castle School. I thought they were really interesting to read and it gave us more information about the side characters.
Overall, I really enjoyed this story. I think it talked about a lot of really important topics in a thoughtful way. I think this was a really great story about young girls that struggle. I really liked the friendships and the relationships that developed. I definitely thought it was going to be a bit of a mystery because of how Moria was telling the story, but I’m not disappointed that it wasn’t. This is a book I’ll definitely be recommending.

Moira is a teenage girl struggling with handling the grief of losing her one and only friend. Her parents send her to The Castle School with hopes that they will be able to help her and get her back on the right path. At first, Moira sees no benefit to her being forced to attend this school. Soon however, she finds herself making friends with the other girls, going on adventures, and finally being able to open up about her immense loss.

I really enjoyed Alyssa Sheinmel's writing style and appreciated how she shed light on various mental health disorders in young girls. However, I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed in this novel. I expected a stronger plot, and thought this novel was going to have a suspenseful psychological thriller element due to the description of the book. I feel the description of this novel is misleading and set me up to be disappointed since I was expecting much more from the novel than it gave us. Despite this, it is still a well-written novel that is worth a read for those who do not mind digging into the heavier emotions of grief and struggles of those with disorders.

The Castle School (for Troubled Girls) is not what you expect it to be, I spent the entire book living in Moira's grief for a character we rarely get to spend time with, but Sheinmel's characterization is rich and complex and heartbreaking at times. Moira and her relationship with Nathan are both the best thing to ever happen to her and the source of her grief. I was totally on board with Moira being a snotty brat after being sent away but as she comes to realize that maybe she does need, and can get help, so did I. I would the other 11 girls in the school to be interesting and there is definitely a series there, but this book is well wrapped up without going off course to try and solve 12 girls trauma in one novel.
I both loved and hated Moira's relationship with her mother, as Moira came to realize she'd made a lot of wrong assumptions so did I. Sheinmel did a great job weaving a story through a unique timeline of flashbacks which added some depth to the story throughout the book.

Review will appear on my blog https://reviewsofyabooks.blogspot.com/ and Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/16121236-sibella on October 21, 2020,

Introduction

Ever since her best friend died, Moira hasn't been the easiest for her parents to handle. When her parents send her to Castle School, Moira knows her parents are at their wits end with her and feels that she is being punished for her bad behavior.

Whatever her parents reasoning, she finds herself with 11 other "troubled" girls. Each of them weighed down with their own struggles, just as Moira is weighed down with her own grief. Together, and with the help of therapy, the girls work to feel better than they had to feel to land themselves at the strange place that is Castle School.

Setting

The setting, a mostly secluded castle in Maine, was a great atmosphere. It's a little dreary, and it appears to hold its own secrets. It was perfect for adding mood to the story.

Themes

This book handles a lot of heavy themes; grief, self harm, disordered eating, etc. and I think the author achieved a perfect balance between heavy scenes where the girl's struggles are discussed, and lighter scenes where you see the girls becoming friends.

Moira

Moira's grief felt very authentic, and her growth throughout her time at the Castle School, with managing and moving forward from her loss, felt perfectly paced. I also liked that the progress was made little by little, it wasn't all crammed into the end to prove that she had grown. You could see the change happen gradually, in small ways, like the way that she was thinking, and in her interactions with the other students. I think that was a very realistic way of showing growth. It doesn't happen completely in revelations, and sometimes, the only way to understand how much you've grown is to look back at the person you were before, and I think this is true for Moira's story.

Romance

There is a small amount of a cutesy romance in this book, but I love that it's not a central plot point. That being said, I love Moira and Randy, both as individual characters and together.

I loved that they would care for each other regardless if things turned romantic, the blooming feelings they have for each other seem to be extra to them, not necessary, and I think that's great.

POVs of the Other Girls

Every few chapters, there is a small excerpt, maybe about a page, that is in the POV of one of the other students at Castle School. These excerpts quickly detail the story of what happened to land each girl at Castle School. I really enjoyed these passages and thought they were the perfect length to give a little personal window into the lives of the other "troubled" girls.

Synopsis

The Goodreads synopsis is a little bit misleading. To me, it sounded like where the music was coming from would be more mysterious, but there is no mystery in the book at all, everything is rationally explained right away.

Conclusion

I loved everything about this book. From beginning to end, everything was perfect to me. I finished this book in two days and I already wish there were more of it to read. I came in to this book with high hopes and it was so much better than expected. I would recommend this book to fans of The School For Dangerous Girls. As long as you can handle heavy themes, this book is fantastic.

This is the kind of book, I think, that takes a little while to process before really being able to form opinions.
The plot is fairly straightforward: Moira is sent away by her parents to the titular school following the death of her best friend, Nathan. Angry and convinced she is being punished, she's ready to hate it, but late one night she hears music coming from the woods nearby. Castle School, it seems, has some secrets.
There was a lot that I liked about it. It's extremely readable. The chapters flow into each other in a way that makes reading only one chapter before bed almost impossible. Moira is a wonderful heroine - deeply sympathetic, intelligent, and curious enough to keep the narrative moving at a real pace without it ever feeling forced. The ending is genuinely heartfelt and extremely well written. The subtle (and not so subtle) fairytale allusions were a real treat.
I did feel that at times it over-romaticised the mental illnesses that the 'girls' were struggling with though. The anorexic who just wants more space, the girl running away because she's trying to move forward. I'd also like to note that the representation of trichotillomania in this book is way off. It is presented as nothing more than a side effect of OCD when it is it's own disorder and looks nothing like the rather strange scene in which the character goes and just pulls her hair and eyebrows out.
Its a shame because, for me, with the character-focused chapters removed, it's a really excellent book. It can feel heavy, just due to the subject matter, but is handled with a certain elegance. But with them in, it does wander dangerously into romantic territory, which is exactly the opposite kind of message to the one the book is trying to bring to the table.

7.5/10

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the eARC in return for an honest review.

Trigger warnings: mentions of substance abuse and self harm

I’ll be completely honest, going into this book I didn’t 100% know what to expect. Sure, after reading the blurb I knew I was going to get a boarding school with a creepy headmaster and a mysterious sound heard at night, but that doesn’t always tell you everything right?
Right off the bat this book was less spooky and more serious than I was expecting. The story follows Moira (with the “oy” sound if you please) who’s getting over the death of her best friend Nathan. She’s being sent to the Castle school because she hasn’t been doing all that well.

Once she’s there, she quickly learns that this school is for girls and their “problems”. There’s girls who’ve dealt with substance abuse and Moira’s roommate is in the infirmary during her first nights there because she cut herself. That’s when the theme clicked. This book would be heavier rather than spooky.

I did very much like the girls. They’re all so tangible in their own right. Moira became friends so quickly, even though she kept on saying she wouldn’t/couldn’t become friends so quickly, because it would mean she’d be “cheating” on Nathan. But when the mysterious bass keeps playing at night and Moira finds the lock on their window broken, she and her roommate Eleanor decide to go and investigate.

They find another Castle school, this one with 12 boys instead of girls, which is run very differently by their headmasters wife. The changes between the schools are drawing the girls back every night, but once things start to escalate, Moira decides she needs to take action.

The story was very much more about learning how to cope and overcome grief, than it was an adventure story, but I liked the way the story was wrapped up. I didn’t actually really find out it was about grief and overcoming it until I started to figure out what happened to Nathan and why Moira was sent to the castle school.

I liked the writing style. It captured my attention and I couldn’t stop reading. It was really addictive! The plot, I found to be a little predictive. I figured out pretty soon what Nathan had died of (you don’t actually find out until about halfway through the book). But that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy this book!

Even though it doesn’t come out until March 2021, I’d highly recommend it if you enjoy these kinds of stories. I’ll definitely be looking for it in bookshops when the publishing date rolls around!

From the start, I was put off from the protagonist because she reminded me so much of stereotypes I typically clash with, but I was pretty quickly endeared to her despite myself, and it wasn’t long before I couldn’t put the book down. My expectations were subverted a few times, and I actually ended up liking *more than one* character I started off disliking. And that’s one of my favorite feelings, when characters aren’t completely flat and have feelings and opinions and motivations that sometimes seem to clash but are realistic. Like human beings. I liked how we saw everything through the main character’s lens, and that maybe she wasn’t always right about characters’ motivations.

I do have some mixed feelings about parts of "The Castle School (for Troubled Girls)," but overall the book was well put together and I believe it did what it set out to do—and it did it well.

I loved this book.
The characters were played very well in this novel
The writing captured my attention from the first page.... which I loved.
Just an amazing book all the way around.

Moira Dreyfuss is skipping school, skipping meals, and can only communicate in either tense silent stretches or a raised and furious voice. A fake ID and a very real tattoo are the final straws for her parents and The Castle School brochures start arriving not long after.

The castle boarding school is set upon an isolated stretch of Maine coastline and is perpetually permeated with chill and misty air. It is the perfect setting for every Gothic novel ever written and is now home to twelve 'troubled girls'. What plagues each of them differs but they are united in their struggles from grief, unhappiness, loneliness, and never feeling like they quite fit in in the outer world.

I'll never not be intrigued by an isolated academic setting, but I grew to appreciate the focus on mental illness just as much as the chilling (in every sense of the word!) setting. These twelve brave and resilient individuals were created with differing and diagnosed mental illnesses and addictions. Sheinmel portrayed their struggle with both authenticity and sensitivity and I highly appreciated the insight garnered into each of them.

Both the pain and suffering, the relapses into past habits, the coping mechanisms deployed, and the stories behind each were focused on, leading this to be a far more emotional novel than I was anticipating. Each girl immediately entered my heart and my interest swayed from boarding school drama to the rawness and honesty each girl exhibited. I may have only been introduced to them mere pages before, but this author's writing had them immediately entering my heart and had me earnestly wishing the best for each of them.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion. All opinions are my own. This review contains spoilers. Moira is confused, but not surprised when her parents send her to The Castle School. Moira knows it is a school for troubled girls and she has been a bit “troubled” recently. When her best friend Nathan was diagnosed with cancer she started skipping school to be with him. When he died, she kind of fell apart. She didn’t eat or sleep. She would sneak out every night to visit Nathan’s grave. She fought with her mother about everything and skipped even more school. It seemed like the last straw for Moira’s mother was when she got a tattoo.
Moira isn’t necessarily angry when she is sent to The Castle. She doesn’t really care about much anymore. She is surprised that only 12 other girls are at The Castle. Each of these girls has their own problems and Moira isn’t sure that the castle is the best place for them. Don’t they need more treatment? How much can the one therapist Dr. Prince do for them? Moira soon starts to become closer to these girls, especially her roommate Elenor. One night, she sneaks out of The Castle with Elenor. They are surprised when they find another castle school just like theirs! It turns out this castle school is for troubled boys and is operated by a female Dr. Prince who they assume is their Dr. Prince’s wife. They start sneaking out every night to go dance with the boys there. Moira finds all of this very strange. She believes the Prince couple might be running an experiment on them. However, she soon finds out this is not true. She becomes closer to Dr. Prince’s son Randy and learns the truth about the family. Randy’s parents used to be a couple and they ran the two schools together. Things changed after Randy got in trouble in school for fighting. Randy started going to The Castle School for boys. Randy got into a fight there as well. Randy’s mom was furious and was worried about how it would make her and the school look. The Princes started fighting about this and it led to a divorce. When they divorced The Castle split into two schools and campuses. The school for boys was owned by Randy’s mom and the school for girls was owned by his dad. Moira thought the two Princes were having two different schools and comparing their results in some sort of twisted experiment. After getting to know Randy and Dr. Prince more, she knows this isn’t true. After lots of therapy sessions with Dr. Prince, she also learns how to better deal with her grief. She thinks the castle school is helping her and she appreciates her new friendships with the other girls. And she and Randy also start a relationship.
Moria stops going to the boy’s castle after one of the boys there makes fun of Randy. Her roommate Elenor keeps going to the boys’ castle every night since she has a boyfriend there. One night, she tells Moira she has plans to run away with her boyfriend and for them to start a new life together. Moira is scared for Elenor’s safety so she tells Dr.Prince about everything. When this whole scandal gets to Elenor’s parents they unenroll her from The Castle and make plans to sue the school. The story ends with the semester ending and Moira going back home. She doesn’t know what will happen next in her life or if The Castle will even be open. She goes home feeling better about herself and her life after Nathan. She also has a better relationship with her mom. She feels a new sense of confidence and is grateful for the lessons she learned at the castle. I really liked this book! It had a few twists and surprises throughout and was really emotional and touching at times. It had lots of mental health representation and a little bit of LQBTQ representation as well. I was pleasantly surprised how it wasn’t as dark as I thought but was actually heartfelt.

"The Castle School for Troubled Girls" is a fun, quick read, and gives an honest, thoughtful depiction of grief, female friendship, and various mental illnesses – plus the tools to work thru them. My only quibble is that the cover and back blurb feel slightly misleading (are those drops of blood?), hinting at a spooky thriller or nefarious mystery that never manifests. Ms. Sheinmel has a terrific voice for broken young women, and I very much enjoyed her last novel, "A Danger to Herself and Others," so I love how she's expanded the ensemble of characters in this one beyond a single, mentally ill protagonist. While the story ends up not being a mystery, it was a treat to spend time with Moira and her classmates, and see them overcome their obstacles in an environment that would actually allow them to do so. Perhaps a castle in the Maine woods is what we all need after this year.

An honest, raw depiction of grief, mental illness, and trauma. I don't want to divulge too much information about the book, it would give the plot away entirely if I did. This book is work the read, don't let the cover fool you.

Moira Dreyfuss has been struggling since the death of her best friend, Nathan. She stopped going to school, hung out late, and her grades were dropping. The last straw for her parents, though, was her getting a tattoo. At that point, Moira is taken to the Castle School, a boarding school for troubled teens in the middle of nowhere Maine. Here, she learns some of the secrets of the school and its twin, Castle South, a boarding school for boys.

While the blurb of the book hints that this may be a mystery or a thriller, but that is misleading. I definitely would not call this a “dark psychological contemporary” either. Instead it is a contemporary story dealing with mental illness. “Dark” it is not, though the places the girls originally came from may have been.

Sheinmel created a very realistic picture of Moira with her paralyzing grief over the loss of Nathan, her best friend. As someone who used to work in grief counseling, many of the paths of denial and finally acceptance were well-thought out and brought to life in this book. She also did an amazing job in creating a realistic headspace of those suffering from mental illness—ranging from depression to OCD to anorexia—with the other eleven girls at Castle North. As the story progresses, you watch as how this group develop friendships and inner strength to help them cope with their issues.

Thanks to NetGalley for the free ARC in return for an honest review.

The book does a great job of looking at mental illness and grief and I thought the main character’s journey was well written. I particularly thought the ending was well handled and tied the story up nicely while still acknowledging the journey ahead for the character’s mental health. The book features twelve girls who are dealing with mental illness, substance abuse, and overall not coping well in their home lives so they are sent to special school to help them. I appreciated that the author had a variety of reasons why the girls were there, and the girls also had varying levels of appreciation (or dislike) for being there.

I did however find that not all the girls’ conditions felt like they were equally well written. There were moments with the secondary characters that felt very stereotypical and flat. Each of the girls gets their own chapter that illustrates how they see themselves and their journey that led to them getting placed at thins school. Some of these chapters were really fascinating and helped flesh out the characters more. They showed some of the less common symptoms, how their conditions developed, and other interesting points that helped define them as more then what got them sent to the school. Some of these chapters though felt like they just reinforced the stereotypes and didn’t add much to the character. I particularly disliked the way the character with ADHD was portrayed throughout the book and found her to be one of the most flat characters. While I understand that there is only so much space that can be given to the supporting characters the difference between the care some of the characters were given and the less fleshed out characters was really jarring to me particularly because of the sensitive nature of the book.

Moving, honest, and sometimes raw contemporary novel about grief, mental illness, and moving forward (not past) trauma. It's difficult to say much about this book without giving away the plot, which would be a true shame as it develops so nicely. I will note (as other reviewers have) that both the cover and the dust jacket summary do this book disservice. They both imply something nefarious is occurring at the school, perhaps even something that might involve elements of the horror genre, but none of these themes or tropes ever arise nor are they ever alluded to within the text itself.