Customer Reviews

The School

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The School is a novel published during the "heyday" of horror novels from the mid 80s - mid 90s. At the time, many publishers were publishing one or two horror novels a month. Some were excellent, some were simply awful, and many were just average. This one is one of those average titles.

The story centers around an all-girl boarding school which has a mysterious past. Fifty years earlier, a student disturbingly killed the headmaster and two students in a gruesome fashion. This event set the stage for the school in its modern day. A girl is sent to the school after her parents divorce. Not long after arriving, she sees visions of things that happened fifty years ago. Eventually she ties the past events with the present.

While slow in parts, there are some eerie scenes which will please horror fans. The authors, Ed Kelleher and Harriette Vidal, penned a number of horror novels published under the Leisure line. This one is indicative of their works -- nothing outstanding, but still an average story.

I'm unsure if this is the exact book I've read, but it sure seems like it, so...

From what I recall a girl goes to a boarding school of sorts when weird satanic stuff starts going down. The school (grounds) keepers have been there for many years, tending to a school which with an evil aura is alive in it's own right. The school seems to know the girls' deepest darkest fears and manifests illusions to exploit that and drive them, one in particular, insane to the point of homicide. Lust befalls the dean of the school who soon finds himself in, shall we say, compromising situations. Flashbacks of horrors and repeated histories plague the main characters, evil spirits wait poised for an attack, and the school's plan drags out, testing it's patience. Then it gets ugly for the girls. Some people may consider this a bad book, or only average. I've been looking for this book for over 5 years since merely reading it forced me to drop out of high school. I just couldn't stop reading it. As if the book itself were an extension of the fictional horrors within it's pages. I knew what would happen but I couldn't close the book. This book will consume you to the last and captivate you from the beginning. You become this book when you read it. And hopefully this is what I've been searching for.

Vanessa, a young, free-spirited Californian girl is suddenly transported to a boarding school in New England after her parents get divorced. There is something wrong about the school, something sinister and she sees ghosts from previous lives, hears voices in the walls and observes the grotesque gargoyles decorating the rooftops, snarl and come to life.

Many years ago, Lisa King wrote a play called `Flowers of Darkness', inspired by the voices from the walls. Lisa had a hopeless crush on the charismatic headmaster who slept indiscriminately with the students. In a rage of jealousy fuelled by the school, which was built on a witches training ground, Lisa kills the headmaster and the two students in his bed. Now the story is replayed in detail, with the school wanting Vanessa. The main focus of the book is on the play, changed to `The Dark' for fear of reminding those on the board who remembered the rumours. At first when Vanessa arrives, you think she is the reincarnation of Lisa King, but then later it emerges that the school wanted her to take over from the current caretakers.

I read this book in Paperback and it was a good read. It kept me interested throughout. It had a steady, albeit slow built to the end, and the story was intriguing enough to make me wonder how it would all end.

Hoo! Bad. I mean, real bad. But bad in a funny way. BMI specializes in horror novels that are bad in a funny way, I think. And they've published some real wangers, but this one may take the cake.

In 1931, a student at a new and exclusive Massachusetts girls' school is possessed by some kind of demonic entity (what, exactly, is never specified) and murders the headmaster, whom she has a crush on, and the two students she discovers him with. Fifty years later, the school (which IS the demonic entity... but we're still not sure what, why, or how) sets up the same scenario with a new cast.

Yup. Bad, I mean, bad. Predictable, silly, gratuitous. Four hundred pages of utter tripe. I laughed in every place I wasn't supposed to.

This book combined action with horror to create an excellent thrilling novel. I would deeply recommend this book because I loved it and when I started reading I could't put it down.