Second book I have read from this author and I liked it a lot partly because It ended differently than I thought it would. The Castle School houses twelve "troubled" girls and employs therapy, comraderie and strict routine to help them. Mental illness, grief, anxiety, self-harm, eating disorders and drug use are all touched on. It started out kind of dreary and negative but as the girls get to know themselves and each other, you understand what the Castle School is attempting to do. The positive (but not storybook ending) was a pleasant surprise. I really liked it!

This felt a little like The Gallagher Girls series with a focus on mental health, which was fascinating. It was refreshing for characters to show their struggles in accepting they were not okay, because that it what it truly feels like. My students would really relate to what each character goes through because it is something teens face more often than we think.

Before I get into the review, I have to say a huge thank you to NetGalley and the publishers over at SourceBooks Fire for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The Castle School (for Trouble Girls) is a book about a girl who is sent to a private boarding school in Maine after her best friend dies and she lashes out. From being out all night visiting her best friend’s grave to skipping school and getting tattoos, Moira will do anything to avoid her loss. But one day her mother has had enough and she sends Moira to The Castle School where there are 11 other girls just like her. Between classes and therapy the girls find time to sneak out and end up discovering they might not be as isolated as they thought. The Castle School (for Troubled Girls) will come out on March 2nd of next year, but is available for pre-order now.

I went into this book with certain expectations based off the synopsis and the book really didn’t meet them. I think the synopsis leads the reader to believe that there’s going to be some “12 Dancing Princesses” retelling or some magical element to the story--which is why I chose to pick it up near Halloween--but that just isn’t what this story is. Nor is it what the story is about. I think the false marketing is what caused this okay, but not great rating from me. I came in with a certain idea of what story I would be reading and it didn’t meet those expectations because of course it didn’t. I think a more accurate explanation of what the story is about is that the main character loses her best friend to cancer and acts out. As a result of her acting out, her mother sends her to a remote boarding school in Maine and there the main character spends the semester trying to learn how to deal with her grief and how to let other people in. I think that premise might have less people picking it up than the spooky premise, but it’s more accurate.

I do enjoy the castle that the school is located in. I wish that the author had added a little more atmosphere to the story where the setting is concerned. But for a section of the book the main character sneaks around at night and that definitely upped the spooky factor for me. I also enjoyed that these characters felt their ages. Especially when Moira realizes in therapy that her relationship with her mother might be different than what she thought. I think Randy is a great side character and I like that he isn’t overly exploited as a love interest. The focus of the story is really Moira’s grief and her struggle to accept her place in the world without her best friend. And I think the author handled that beautifully. I think she really took the time to consider how a 17 year old might handle something so heavy, especially with it being her first time losing someone close to her. And the author never downplays their relationship in the story. She repeatedly brings up how much you can love someone in a non-romantic way.

I think if you can manage your expectations for this story then it can be really impactful. I think the main things that hurt it were the misleading synopsis and the dialed down atmosphere. But if you’re looking for an emotional story about a platonic love and loss then this is exactly what you need.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this novel!

This novel was incredibly easy to read despite its heavy subject material - which is just what I like. Moira's character is both intriguing yet predictable but I loved her story and her relationship with Nathan. One thing I will add as well is that I like that Moira tells the reader off the bat that Nathan's dead and doesn't hide it until the end of the novel like many narrators could do to trick the reader.

Furthermore, I really liked in between the chapters that we get to read about the girls and their backstories. It gives us a depth without having Moira speak to each individual character.

I would have liked to know more about the other Castle Schol as there are still many questions unanswered but even so the book was a good read.

The Castle (for Troubled Girls) is a psychological contemporary novel by Alyssa Sheinmel.
So this book isn't a typical mystrey novel like I was expecting but it is primarily focused on bringing to light the issues young adults face when it comes to mental health. Though it's something that's talked about a lot in the present day, it's still considered a sensitive topic and the author does a brilliant job of creating a balance between real world issues in a fictional setting.
We meet different girls who each suffer from issues ranging from kleptomania to self harm and we get to deep dive into what lead each of them to be enrolled at the school/castle. It's sad to hear their stories but what makes it even more real is that there are people going through these issues on a daily basis in the real world.
The mystrey element come from Moira's doubts about Dr. Prince's practices in the castle and that it feels more like a jail to her which in its own way was interesting as we get to learn a LOT more than I expected about him and why the Castle exists.
But the ending takes the cake as Moira's struggles finally unravel as she learns why her parents sent her to the Castle and it runs way deeper than just "skipping class".
It brings into question why we do the things we do because even when we don't realise it, subconsciously we all have our reasons.
Overall, I loved this book!

I enjoyed this book. It was well written and flowed really quickly. I tore through it. However, part of the reason I tore through it is because the book made it seem as if there was going to be some sort of mystery or some sort of secret exposed. This was not the case at all. This was really a book about a grieving girl coming to terms with the death of her best friend. I felt a little duped by the blurb on the back of the book and also the set up of the book which truly did make it seem like something "else" was going on. I think I would have appreciated this book more had I not been anticipating something else. Thank you to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Fire, and Alyssa Sheinmel for this ARC. The author is a talented writer and I look forward to reading more by her in the future.

The Castle School (for Troubled Girls) is an excellent YA novel about platonic love and grief. Having personally lost one of my best friends at 17 (around the same time as the main character), this novel brought back a lot of those emotions and hit hard on some lessons that it took me many, many more years to learn than it took Moira. As a social worker, I can also say that the therapeutic aspect of this book is well-done and the ending leaves teenagers and young adults with exactly the right messages about grief and loss (although Moira really does get there very quickly).

Moira is a high school senior who went from straight-A student to not a chance of graduating on time as her best friend Nathan developed brain cancer and eventually passed away on the first day of their senior year. Moira's mom, seemingly frustrated with all of Moira's class-cutting and family-dinner-ditching, finally snaps when she learns Moira has been sneaking out late at night to visit Nathan's grave and got a tattoo and so can't even be buried in a Jewish cemetery like a good daughter. Moira is immediately shepherded off to a reform school in the middle of nowhere where she is stuck with eleven other girls all sent away by their parents for reasons that seem equally dumbfounding to each of them.

Once at school, Moira is immediately suspicious of the psychologist, Dr. Prince, and his treatment methods. He insists on calling this place a school, but what little schooling exists is a joke. It's basically just treatment. Within a few days, she has followed mysterious music coming from outside her window across the the grounds and to a whole other castle--the Castle School (for Troubled Boys) presumably. There she discovers that the treatment program for the boys is very different. While hers is very strict, with phones treated as contraband and bedtime before 9pm, the boys are free to roam unsupervised late into the night and are having dance parties while blasting music from their iPhones. When she learns that Dr. Prince's ex-wife--the other Dr. Prince--is running their program, that only fuels her conspiracy theory that they are running some halfcocked experiment to determine whose methods work better.

Throughout the novel, Nathan remains a constant presence for Moira. The questions of what Nathan would say and do are ever-present. The guilt of doing new things without him, the memories of all of their adventures and their bond, and the extraordinary shame of having let him down when he counted on her the most. As Moira works through these intense feelings, she learns so much about not only herself, but her mom, and ultimately about Nathan as well--a boy she thought she already knew everything about. An incredible story.

On another note, trying to personalize each of the eleven other girls was nice in the sense that it brought a realistic perspective to each of several different "disorders" that can be very affirming for teenagers who are struggling with them or have friends who are. From girls struggling with opiate addiction and alcoholism to eating disorders and pulling out their hair and selective mutism, the author does a phenomenal job of humanizing their perspectives on these "afflictions." However, it really led me as a reader to think Moira would have more interactions with most of these girls or that their stories would intertwine much more than they did. They are all very much background characters.

I do want to be clear that there is no real mystery in this novel in the way the blurb suggests. This is a story about platonic love and the overwhelming grief of losing your best friend at such a young age. It's not a thriller and there are no crazy plot twists. So don't keep frantically reading trying to figure out what's up with the school. It's nothing interesting. Literally everything is as it seems. That felt misleading, but was hardly a disappointment, since anything more would have detracted from the actual message.

Much thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the eARC in exchange for the review.

Recently Moria's best friend Nathan died and ever since then she has been living life in a trance and heading down a downwards spiral as in her mind since Nathan isn't here to enjoy life, then why should she as to her it feels like everything she does in life including making new friends is a betrayal to Nathan. Her parents are at their wit's end and have decided to send her to a boarding school called "The Castle School " Each semester the school picks 12 girls that they think they can help from all walks of life but each of them, their parents are at their wit's end. At the school, Moira will soon adjust to the way of life, and one night she hears music and along with her roommate Eleanor who is in for self-harm, they discover a school just like there but for 12 boys. This Castle School though seems like a happier and freerer version than their one but soon they will learn that things are not always as they seem. If you are looking for an edgy read that has a heavy focus on Mental Health and other issues then check out The Castle School (For Troubled Girls) by Alyssa Sheinmel. I love these books as I am a big fan of edgy fiction as I have always found Mental Health books fascinating and this was the second book I have read from Alyssa Sheinmel that has featured Mental Health issues. One of the diseases that was mentioned in this book - trichotillomania ( obsessive hair pulling) touched me on a personal level as I suffered from this from aged 7 - 11 years old. It got so bad for me that I didn't even know I was doing it and I would wake up and have clumps of hair on my pillow in the morning, during this too when I was 7+, I went through a stage where I told my parents that I didn't want to live anymore - so Mei's issues I could fully understand and recognize.

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.

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.