Cute, YA paranormal romance about: a school for necromancers; a human girl’s unwieldy powers; & her instant love/hate with a mysterious boy named G. Also, her adorably cranky (un)dead cat!

The worldbuilding was interesting, although I wish it had been more fleshed out. A fun read for any teens who are into magical academia or fantasy romance!

I really couldn’t connect with this unfortunately and didn’t like the writing style. I loved the premise but it all fell a little bit flat for me.

I tried to read this book, I really did. It should have been my jam...spells, mentions of pagan holidays, magic powers....but the writing style just would not let me continue. I understand that this was young adult...but I've read middle grade to my children where the writing style was more engaging and just....better. It read like my attempts to write a book when I was 10 years old. Too many descriptions of characters, one after another after another. Not even flowery prose descriptions either. I think one page alone had 8 different color descriptions describing hair, socks, boots, glasses, etc. I couldn't get past it long enough to focus on the story. It's a shame too, the premise sounded so good.

Hemlock is the story of Rook Dagger, the first human necromancer in 500 years. Rook spent the first 15 years of her life living in a small cottage by the lake, being homeschooled by her mother. But now the time has come for Rook to enroll in Hemlock Academy, a centuries old school teaching the art of necromancy. The students will one day be assigned to one of the seven magical kingdoms where they will serve king and country for as long as needed. Rook's abilities make her unique- and she could be a force of nature- if she wasn't hung up on a boy. G Gianni is a beautiful distraction, and Rook can't get him out of her head. She loves to hate him; he hates to love her. And together they could destroy the world.

So overall, I found this to be a pretty enjoyable read! I liked how the author gave us a character list and lots of fun extras up front, like a playlist! I found the world to be intriguing, but I do think it lacked a little in world building. There was so much potential with all the different kingdoms and creatures introduced. It's a pretty good first book, and it's setting us up well for future stories. I'd love to see more of Rook and the other student's daily lives, and explore their classes more. Getting to see what they're learning in necromancer school would be really interesting. There's also the lore of the school and world that is really cool to see interwoven into Rook's story. I really want to know more.
While I liked the characters, I also felt like there was a lack of development. I'd love to see more of Rook's character development not revolve around G. That's where the majority of this book is spent- G and Rook's relationship development. G can be really irritating too, in typical jerky YA bad boy fashion. But one thing I do appreciate is that Rook really feels like a 15-year-old. She had me totally cringing in secondhand embarrassment many times, and I enjoyed the realistic way she's written. Too often YA heroines feel way older than they're supposed to be, so I'm glad Rook was as painfully awkward as teenagers really are. I also liked that there was some female friendship development, and I really liked Nadia.
I definitely guessed the twist at the end. No spoilers, but if you're used to this genre it won't be hard to see coming.
Overall, I'm interested to see where this story goes next. The ending felt a bit abrupt, but there's a lot of room to continue the story and make a really cool series out of it. It's an easy read and there's a lot to keep you invested in the story!

I received a free e-ARC from the author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am so disappointed to say that Hemlock fell completely flat for me. What promised to be an amazing story about a young female necromancer going to school for necromancy turned out to be a tepid instalove story with a super predictable plot.

That was awful. Truly awful.

I know we're only in March, but I can already tell that this one will be a contender for my worst reads of the year. I think the reason that I hated this so much is because it had SUCH potential and it felt like it *chose* to crash and burn.

This book is pitched as girl who is a necromancer who is sent away to a school for necromancers because of the trouble her powers could bring in the human world. She is the only person in this school with human blood as all the other students have some other type of paranormal upbringing - witches, werewolves, vampires, etc. And honestly, this book started off so compelling with Rook bringing her cat back to life. I was excited to plunge into a good paranormal YA with kids in a boarding school. I love the Crave series by Tracy Wolff and I loved the Winx Saga on Netflix. This trope is my JAM.

But no. No. This book was terrible. It was so terrible and I am just so angry.

Here we are with a super interesting premise and the author chooses to go down the route of instalove with two ridiculous names: Rook Dagger and G Gianni. I was reading an ARC I got from Netgalley so I legit thought the "G Gianni" was a typo every time it was printed. It wasn't until her friend made a big deal about "G" revealing his first name to Rook (which happens towards the end of the book) that I understood "G Gianni" was how people referred to him and that "G" was not just a nickname for "Gianni." Good lord. How ridiculous.

Hemlock didn't focus on the magic or the different realms or the Forest of Emma Green or anything that would have kept it remotely interesting. It focused on Rook falling in love with G at first sight, how he dated new girls every day, and how Rook was gonna make him jealous by looking good and making him want her. Any ounce of potential this book was had was squashed for instalove with no reason. Here is a girl who brought her damn cat back to life as a kid and is going to a SCHOOL FOR NECROMANCY and we're only gonna focus on the boy who's too dreamy for a personality.

Major fail of epic proportions. I hereby bestow onto you one star for the sheer anger you have given me.

A really good book though it was slow paced in my opinion. Still very interesting and well executed though!! Overall, solid 3 star read. Though I did get bored during reading it during some points.

This dark academia tale is an enticing entry into the world of Hemlock Academy. The next installment is highly anticipated!

This book had a lot of potential with the story but the author fell flat for me on this. It was very juvenile and the writing definitely needs work.

This was...not good. I feel like there's a lot of potential for this book. However, it defaults to all of the standard stereotypes and read like any other YA novel. The characters were flat, and any plot that existed was predictable, including the "plot twist" ending.

this was a great great great thriller! so much fun and intrigue and that cover is just mesmerizing. so. read it and pick it up and grab it right now.

What an interesting and effervescent story! I could tell right away that the main character was special, which piqued my interest for most of the read. Different, but good!

Unfortunately I was unable to download and Review this book. I have thus given this an impartial 3 star rating for this book review.

Every bit of the story is like typical YA tropes that I've known such as the 'chosen one' heroine falling for the bad guy in the school. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the history of necromancy in which its setting set in the academy. Sounds cool!

3 stars. I didn't finish this, the writing style just wasn't for me, I couldn't get into it. I loved the premise, and the character glossary made me laugh. Overall it looks like it is interesting but I felt like there was a lot of over-explaining/ over describing for me to really enjoy what was happening.

This book was a non-stop cringe-fest. It took me ages to read it because I literally could not stand it.

First of all, was there no editor for this? Did Rue Volley just write it and turn it in without proof-reading? There were tons of typos and misused words, misused or missing punctuation, and the narration kept switching between past and present tense.

This book felt like it was either written by a clueless teenager or by someone who was born at the age of 40 and has never met a teenager, but has read about them in horrible 2000s YA literature. Rook Dagger, our protagonist, is the whole "I'm different because I actually love to eat" type. She expounds upon this point and then continues on to eat like 3 grapes and a handful of popcorn and is like, "wow look how much I eat!" Is she saying most girls don't like to eat? It's kind of something every human being does for survival, it's not really a hobby or a choice. Then at one point, they're in the cafeteria and she has some food on her plate and her best friend's boyfriend is like, "wow, that's so hot" right in front of said friend?? Bizarre. Also, Rook has the whole "I don't wear makeup, but I have pore-less perfect skin, so it doesn't matter" and "I don't know what fashion is, I just dress like a depressing 90s cliche" thing going on. At one point, her friend is telling her about some fashion brand and her literal response is, "I don't know what Toch is, Nadia- but the jacket it neat." When exactly was the last time you heard a teenager use the word "neat" in an un-ironic way? Probably the 1950s. She is also asked at one point what makes her happy and she says, "I like books... and scents." Once again, scents are just a part of living, much like eating food is. Those are not hobbies. She also says that she loves Twilight. Teenagers haven't been into Twilight in like 10 years (I know because I was one of them). She refers to her home as her "cottage" every freaking time she brings it up. It was just weird and unnatural. There are a few other things about her that are weird and unnatural: she "innocently kisses" her friend on the mouth the first time she meets her (??), she gets ready in the bathroom and puts makeup on then waits until she's STANDING IN THE HALLWAY about to enter her classroom to put contacts in without even washing her hands (??????), and she thinks the way to a man's heart is just being a giant bitch to him. Thanks for the tip.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was super confusing, it seemed all over the place. I did finish it, because I don’t believe in DNFing a book. I will give it a two star rating because overall the world building and supernatural part of the book was good. But the actual plot was just too confusing.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this review copy.

this was a great start to a series, I enjoyed the characters and thought the plot was a great start. I look forward to more in the series.

Thanks you to the publisher for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn’t even finish this book because it was so confusing and really boring. I had a hard time picking out the actual plot. I thought, going into the book, that it was supposed to be about necromancers. It wasn’t. There was barely any backstory on any of the characters. Plus the author threw in the other popular supernatural characters just as an added feature. There was no reason for them to be there, and if there was, we were not told about it.
The whole necromancy aspect took a backseat for the drama that unfolded between the characters. The main character, Rook, was too young and naive for me to connect to her issues and I found her just plain annoying.
Overall, this book was not for me.
Rating: 1 star
Status: DNF’d

HOW OLD IS THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK?? Not old enough. This book had THE GREATEST premise. I love boarding school books, magic, boys with crazy hair?? I am IN. But this book was ridiculous. The most cliched, juvenile writing/romance/setting. Ugh.