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Title:  Hollow Fields Vol 1

Author:  Madeleine Rosca

Publisher:  Sever Seas

ISBN:  9781933164243

May Contain Spoilers

When Lucy Snow gets lost on her way to her new boarding school, she finds herself instead at Miss Weaver’s Academy for the Scientifically Gifted and Ethically Unfettered.  Also known as Hollow Fields, Lucy finds herself enrolled before she can blink.  Enticed by the free education and sumptuous new digs, she carelessly signs the contract that’s presented to her, without reading all of the fine print.  She soon learns that Hollow Fields isn’t exactly what it seems, and that bad grades can mean a one way trip to the old Windmill, and once a kid’s been sent to detention, they’re never seen again!

This was fun read, kind of like Harry Potter for the ethically challenged.  With classes like constructing killer robots, grave robbing, and cross species transplantation, it gives a nice change from boring subjects like reading, writing, and math.  What kid doesn’t want to build a killer robot?  Or try their hand at anatomical rearrangement?

Lucy travels, clueless, through the chapters, unprepared for the nightmare she’s just gotten herself trapped in.  Quickly learning that bad grades earn a permanent detention, she watches in horror as her new friend, Simon, is dragged, in chains, from the dining room by a large, creepy, overstuffed plushie.  The instructors are equally scary as they supervise visits to the grave yard to rustle up some spare body parts or sternly correct failed transplantation projects.

I wish there had been a little more background into the world of Hollow Fields, and hope that the next volume will delve a little deeper into the strange surroundings Lucy has been sucked into.  I also thought Lucy was little too timid and meek, until she gathered up the courage to save her stuffed Dino from the robot.  Now I can rest assured that she will be able to battle wits with the school’s administration, and learn the secret to the old windmill.  

With its delightfully ghoulish character designs and cheerfully eerie setting, Hollow Fields is a fast-paced journey to the boarding school that you don’t want to attend.  Send a sibling instead.

Grade:  B

Rated for All Ages

Review copy provided by Seven Seas