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.

“You scared me. I’d never seen that much blood.”
“People get too freaked out by blood. What’s the big deal? We all have it.”
“Yeah, but most of us try to keep as much of it as possible inside of us.”

Alyssa Sheinmel has a very niche style. I first encountered it in A Danger to Herself and Others, and I saw it once again with The Castle School (for Troubled Girls). She delves deeply into the mind of, you guessed it, troubled girls.
Most of the time, when you read a book about a young woman being labelled as difficult and being institutionalized, you expect her to be falsely accused. You expect that society has labelled her as crazy simply because she didn’t fit the mold. And history would agree; for example, the Salem Witch Trials. This idea of a young woman desperately fighting the system is thrilling and vindictive. Yet, Alyssa Sheinmel never takes this easy route. She shows us real girls with real mental illnesses, and the struggles that they go through. Her stories show us that accepting your problems is the first step to solving them. She builds trust in the system, rather than feeding the idea of crazy scientists and evil doctors. There is not big reveal, or dramatic plot twist. Her stories are real and they aren’t sensationalized, which is why they can feel a bit anticlimactic at first. But mental illness isn’t something that can be conquered in a day, or even a year. It’s a long, slow, often bitter process.
I did, however, find this more satisfying than A Danger to Herself and Others, possibly because Moyra wasn't locked up in a cell. Moyra isn't kept in solitary confinement; she's at a posh boarding school in a castle where she's served delicious food and has ample leisure time. The ensemble cast of The Castle School also added to its charm, and the way that Alyssa Sheinmel explained each of their illnesses was very insightful. Their “disorders” were much harder to brush off as “bad decisions” once we got a look into their mindset.
Overall, The Castle School serves us a protagonist who barges in with conspiracy theories and indignation, only to emerge as a wiser and kinder soul on the path to recovery. Maybe it’s presumptuous, but I think the readers of the book might have a similar journey.

Moira is a troubled young girl that is sent to boarding school. There she finds even more trouble when she discovers the boys school nearby. However, that’s not the only trouble she finds. The school is full of mystery and she sets out to find the truth. This is a slow starter, but it is an overall very good read. It’s full of suspense and mystery. It draws the reader in and makes you want to know what happened. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to any fan of YA thrillers!

I loved this book. The characters and their emotions felt so real and raw. I don't cry at many books, but the grieving process that this book describes was very similar to how I've felt losing my dad and I found myself overcome with emotion many times on our main character's journey. This book is a stand out book for me this year and probably for years to come. I would recommend this.

This book is everything I wanted right now and took my mind away to the world of this book . The story is really strong and kept me page turning and I just didn’t want to put it down . Just a really solid read great work Alyssa Sheinmel !

Disclaimer: I got this in an exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. This book is perfect for fans of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder and The Gallagher Academy. I thought it was very compelling and the story instantly draws you in!

A little meh. Plot line were good but the story just wasn’t there. Overall a good read, but a little disappointing. Main character was annoying, I didn’t like the style this book was written in, I find it hard to stay focused. Also I felt like the spooky vibe was missing but that could just be me

I was really excited for the premise of this book, although disappointed in the execution. I found the initial chapters really lackluster and quite frankly, I found the main character annoying, However, I really liked how mental health and grief were discussed in this book. In addition, I think I would've liked it more if there was more of a mystery element like the plot suggests, or if it was simply marked as a "YA Contemporary"

I have a love/hate relationship with this one.
I originally got it because it seemed like a spooky book. I thought maybe the castle was haunted, or something sinister was going on. That’s not the case at all.

The book is a really nice display of touching grief, and what it does to others and how people deal with that. I liked the random chapters through the book that told how the girls were at the school in the first place, and what was “wrong” with them.

The main character got kind of annoying real fast. Maybe it was the grief, or maybe she was just annoying, but she had this constant need to make it seem like everyone was out for her. She wanted no friends, or really to do anything. She didn’t even have many personality traits outside of being obsessed with her best friend from home, and knowing useless trivia

The writing was good, and i enjoyed the story (trying to figure out grief) but i feel like it was something completely different then i expected

I wasn't 100% on board with some of the first person 'troubled girl' chapters, but I did find most of them to be at least 70% right (not that I'm an expert on these things, but it's my review and I say what I want). Overall, the main character was a little bit oblivious,a fact which was mitigated by a couple of her cohorts being downright interesting.

For some odd reason I thought this book was going to have a lot of action. I’m not sure why I thought that but I was completely wrong. This book isn’t the light reading I thought it was going to be. This book has a lot of depth and emotion and it’s one that tackles hard mental issues, but it’s done in away that doesn’t trivialize it. I laughed and my heart broke for the characters. Alyssa Sheinmel does an amazing job of making you feel like all the characters are the main ones. I couldn’t even tell you my favorite character because I was so invested in all of them. It’s just an amazing story overall.

Listen as a girl who could never find her name on a novelty keychain I am always going to be sucked into anything where one of the main characters has my exact name. I really enjoyed this one. I thought the author did an outstanding job In her approach of handling multiple mental illnesses. This is emotional, poignant, layered read that was also thought provoking, well written book with memorable characters. The ending had me in tears.

Definitely a tearjerker. Reminds me of the movie My Girl Two. Addresses a lot of teen issues in a more positive light than normal.

A YA novel about grief and other issues that can block life from moving forward. The topics are handled in an honest and realistic way, and though dark, the book is overall optimistic. I was pleasantly surprised by how much i connected with the characters and the story.