Thank you to sourcebooks and netgalley for an ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is about a school in the middle of nowhere, hosting 12 'troubled' girls.

Positives of this book - I liked the cast of characters. I liked the atmosphere and the setting.

Negatives - because there were so many girls, we didn't get as much time with some of them which was a shame.
- I didn't care about the romance storyline for the main character.

The reasons for the girls being there were all different and I appreciated that even though they are young they can experience these serious issues and problems such as addiction, grief, depression and self-harm, but I felt that maybe this could have been done with a more sensitive lens.

TW: self-harm on page, alcoholism, drug addiction, eating disorders. There are probably others, so please research before reading.

Unfortunately this wasn't for me. I really did not expect the book to be like it was. I was expecting a mystery of some sort, like a puzzle that needed to be solved about the school and it's inhabitants. I was not expecting a contemporary book about grief and loss and mental illness. While I don't think this was done poorly at all (although I do think it could've been a little more effective with less characters), it just was not what I signed up and therefore I was left feeling disappointed. This is not the fault of the book itself, I think it's a fault of the description and the cover, which suggest a much more murder-mystery type story or something similar. I still think this is a good book for what it was, and if you are looking for a deep dive into mental health and grief, I would totally recommend this. It just isn't something I would normally go for, and because of that I found myself not really loving it.

Thanks for allowing me to read this e-ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased, unpaid review.
This book was not what I expected to read, and I mean that in a good way. I thought I was going to be reading another YA thriller; what I got was a well written, well thought out story about grief and how it affects people, and how everyone heals at their own pace. This story about grief is wrapped up in a shell of a story about an all girls boarding school in the middle of the woods with no contact with the outside world.....or is there? And where is the lights and music coming from? And where did the cute boy who drove the main character Moira come from, and why can't she find him at her school? This was an engrossing read, and I enjoyed the characters and the twists and turns along the way.

This was a much, much heavier book than I was expecting.

The Castle School for Troubled Girls is a portrait of grief, loss, and how we find our way back from them, and for the most part, the story paints that portrait well.

The book is thoughtfully composed, compelling, and mostly responsible in its treatment of grief and different forms of mental illness.

That said, I’ve got some mixed feelings about it. Like most people, I don’t enjoy being misled. And if ever there were a publishers summary that leads the potential reader down the garden path, it’s this one.

The summary for this book says things like “something isn’t right about the castle school,” and that Moira “hears distant music.” That’s a setup for a very, very different kind of book than the one that Alyssa Sheinmel has actually written. It’s the set up for the kind of book I seek out. An honest summary of this book would have told me this wasn’t for me.

Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with the book Sheinmel actually chose to write. It’s a good one and she handled her material well. But because the summary was so misleading, I spent at least half the book waiting for a mysterious disappearance, or for fairies to show up, or for the castle to exist on a different plane or something, and then I spent the second half of the book being irritated that I was misled.

As I said, I don’t care for being misled, which I assume is something I have in common with pretty much everyone. And I find it especially irresponsible to mislead in this way with a book meant for teens, and especially with one that deals with heavy psychological material and...trust issues!

I don’t blame the author for this. She wrote a good book that had every right to be promoted on its own true merit. But the bait and switch used to lure in readers is, quite frankly, gross and dishonest, and it spoiled the experience of what was otherwise a well-crafted novel.

This book. Blew. Me. Away. Set in a genre that I adore, this book was fun, enthralling and well developed. The characters were well written, and I generally enjoyed the whole book!!

I did not expect the ending!!

I don’t even recall what drove me exactly to request this book—maybe it was the idea of a boarding school or maybe that Moira was dealing with the grief of losing her best friend—but whatever it was, I am so glad this book found its way to me.

CW:
MC-nonpracticing Jewish rep, grief,
Supporting-portrayal of cutting/self harm, depression, hair pulling, adhd, anger, selective mutism, ED, etc

This book was such a great, realistic look at mental illness and grief and in a way that didn’t glorify or abhor them but just presented it as it is.

I went in thinking from the description that there would be some sort of fantasy or escapism mystery but instead the author showed us in real time that it’s exactly that kind of thinking that allows us to avoid dealing with our pain and ourselves. While the MC Moira is showing us how she is adjusting to life in the castle school, we also see glimpses into the other 11 girl’s’ viewpoints and how they ended up at the school as well. And through the escape to the other school we see Moira and the others begin to face their own inner turmoil with the help of eachother and Dr. Prince.

Moira’s experience with loss and grief resonated so powerfully for myself, not only because it was so raw and real and true but because it is so similar to that of my own story and the loss of my brother. This is a book that I think will provide catharsis for readers who have lost someone who died too young and didn’t know how to deal with that loss. This book will speak to those who have dealt with mental illness and been told they were too much to deal with, too broken, for their families or therapists to deal with anymore. It’s a book that says it’s okay to show those parts of yourself, to grieve, to be vulnerable, and that everyone is going through things that may or may not be visible to others. It’s about the messiness of loving and dying, of living with mental illness, of resentment and forgiveness and second chances and seeking help.

It’s one of those books that will stay with me for my life and that I hope to recommend to others struggling with these things in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and Source Books Fire for this arc.

I found this to be a compulsively readable book - I downloaded it the moment I was accepted and read it the same evening - helped by short and engaging chapters. I enjoyed the focus on mental health and the different struggles of the twelve girls at The Castle School for Troubled Girls. However, I did think the book's blurb was a bit misleading - it made this book sound like a mystery when it really isn't. There's a slight element of mystery but it is by no means the main thrust of the book, nor is there any tension surrounding it. This is mostly a character study and a study of grief, and I wish this was more explicit in the book's description!

I love the premise of Alyssa Sheinmel's books and I love the writing but I always want them to be darker or more mysterious. There's just something about them that feels lacking but not necessarily disappointing. I definitely think I'll continue to read from this author despite this

I haven't read any of Sheinmel's books before, but I definitely want to after reading this one! Moira is a high school senior, deeply mourning the death of her best (and it seems like maybe only) friend. She's spending very little time at home, she's doing poorly in school, she's not able to communicate with her parents, and apparently the last straw is that she gets a tattoo without permission. For the rest of her senior year, she is sent to the Castle School, a very small boarding school (formerly named the Castle School for Troubled Girls), where she meets 11 other girls around her age, all suffering from serious mental health issues. She and her roommate discover that they can open the bars on their window, and they sneak out, discovering a nearly identical Castle School just on the other side of the woods, this one for boys. What I liked best about this book was seeing Moira's healing process. It was often difficult, especially as she navigated through group sessions and individual therapy and began to develop relationships with the other girls at Castle. Without giving too much away, I liked that the school turned out to *not* be some kind of weird experiment, but an initiative of a psychologist who truly wanted to help girls who needed intensive treatment.

The Castle School (for Troubled Girls) is an incredibly insightful book that explores grief and the difficulties of moving forward, rather than moving on.

I want to make it clear that while this was a difficult book to read, I also think it is an incredibly important book.

Sheinmel discusses topics including grief, addiction, self-harm, depression, eating disorders and more with grace, care and empathy, but these are still topics that readers may find very triggering. Because of that I do think readers should use caution when picking up this book, and should do what’s best for them and their health when deciding whether or not to read this one.

The de-stigmatization of mental illness is an ongoing process and I think this book can be a helpful resource as part of that discussion.

In terms of the writing, pacing and character development Sheinmel has written a book that is impossible to put down. The characters are interesting and full of depth. The pacing is perfect, making this a quick read without feeling rushed. One of my favorite things about this book is the setting. Moria references fairytales and alternate dimensions several times throughout the book, often discussing how the Castle School (or the other mysterious school) feels like another world/reality. I think this is a great metaphor for mental health and how many people process grief and trauma.

My only wish for this book is that we had learned more about the second mysterious all boys school. Not because that school needed to be more developed or present within this book, but simply because Sheinmel has done such a phenomenal job with the Castle School that Moria ‘attends’.

The Castle School is a nuanced, thought-provoking exploration of mental illness and grief, beautifully told and moving.

The core strength of this book has to be the characters for me. Each of the girls felt fleshed-out, assisted by seeing inside each of their heads at least for a page or two. It created this really cohesive and thought-out exploration of a range of different mental illnesses and raising wider questions about the struggles young people face in today’s world. At the end of the day, this is primarily Moira’s story. In a character-driven novel, your protagonist has to be interesting and relatable and Moira was both of those in bucketloads. She’s got a tough exterior but she’s haunted by her past and shrouded in her grief. Watching her go through a personal journey of grappling with that grief and learning to live with it was cathartic and amazing. Sheinmel pays close attention to detail in every step along the way and I really appreciated that.

A big draw of this book for me was the hint at some mysterious secondary school. This paid off really well, especially in the links between the two schools that are eventually revealed. It didn’t take away from the main storyline, instead it complimented and enriched it. It threw up questions about psychological techniques and highlighted how individualised the rocky and seemingly endless road to recovery can be. Speaking of which, I really appreciated how Sheinmel made it clear that there is no magical cure or simple solution to deeply entrenched and complex problems. Instead, it has to be personalised and thoughtful care, with acknowledgement that there will be relapses.

The Castle School was a quieter, introspective story that I found myself caring for more and more with each page.

I really enoyed this author's previous two novels, but sadly, I just couldn't get into this one at all. The beginning was very slow and kinda dull and it just never really picked up for me the way I wish it would.

Thank you to @netgalley and @sourcebooksfire for this advanced copy!
First off I really liked the premise of the book. Moira acts out, gets sent to an all girls boarding school in the middle of nowhere and then finds there’s more going on than what the school lets on. Great concept. HOWEVER, what I didn’t know going into the book and continued to bother me throughout, was that each “issue” that the girls had was a mental illness. It made me very uncomfortable that because the girls were battling alcoholism, anxiety, ocd, grief, depression, self harm, mutism, and many more things; they were considered troubled and sent away by their parents.
Now don’t get me wrong, I see what the author was trying to do. The therapy sessions were listed, and there was some deeper meanings/messages hidden within the book; but I just couldn’t get past the title. I will end with this; the last quote in the book was “Maybe happily ever after means accepting what is, remembering what was, and looking forward to whatever is coming next” which proves that the main character did indeed learn and grow at the school but as a whole, it just didn’t sit well with me.
I’ve seen a lot of people read and enjoy this book so maybe I’m just thinking too much or not getting the bigger picture but for me I didn’t like the portrayal of mental health.

The book was provided to me via Netgalley in return for an honest review.

"The first thing they tell me is that the school is called the Castle and the campus is called the Kingdom."

In this book we follow Moira after the death of her best friend Nathan, as she tries to deal with her grief. She got stuck in the first stage, denial. And her mother decide to send her to the Castle school to get help. There she meets eleven other girls with their own problems, makes friends and learns to deal with her grief...

As Moira slowly starts accepting Nathan's death, she also learns to let the other girls in and even to allow herself to care about them. Seeing her healing from her loss showed me that it can be possible for myself as well.

I like that Alyssa delves into the story for each of the other girls at the Castle, as Moira learns more about herself and her progress. Giving us a glimpse into what they feel and how they think makes them real and more relatable. I don't have a lot of knowledge when it comes to mental illness, but this story had an impact on me.

This book.....wasn’t what I thought it was gonna be like 😬 I don’t wanna scream misleading advertising, because the synopsis WAS pretty vague, but this book didn’t go in the direction I thought/hoped it would. Yikes.

When I stumbled across this book I just HAD to put in a last minute arc request. First off, my inner dark academia lover is biased towards books about creepy boarding schools anyways, but a mysterious boarding school that’s referred to as a CASTLE? Plus twelve dancing princesses teas? I mean COME ON. IT’S MY BRAND.

This book started out super strong because I was filled with expectation. I was SO SURE I was going to love it that I had even told numerous friends about this exciting book I was starting. Not only is this boarding school called the Castle and the surrounded campus called the Kingdom (capitalization required) the doctor on-site is named Dr. Prince. I loved the fairytale references, like how there are twelve girls there for the twelve dancing princesses, and how the patients are even called subjects like kingdom subjects.

Then after about 50% in, it went downhill. I realized nothing substantial was happening. Literally nothing really was happening at all lol. The ending barely even had a climax, and nothing exciting happened. This barely had a mystery to it, and the unveiling of the mystery was really disappointingly average. I could probably sum this whole book up in a paragraph.

3 (generous) stars solely because I loved the fairytale references.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for sending me an arc in return for a review!

"We can't keep the people we love alive by putting our own lives on hold. In fact, we can't put our lives on hold at all. Time marches on, even when we don't want it to."

The Castle School (for Troubled Girls) follows Moira, after her parents have decided to send her to a boarding school specialising in therapy and recovery from mental illnesses. But the school has an air of mystery to it, and the more she learns about it, the more things seem odd to Moira. After having no contact with the outside world- Moira discovers another school across the woods that houses only boys.

This synopsis makes it sound like the book will be a thriller, or at very least a mystery. But the overarching themes were of grief, recovery and friendship. I think these misplaced expectations made my experience a little tainted- mostly because I would have preferred the story if it followed a bit more of the thriller/mystery path. I spent the first half to three quarters of the book questioning everything, was the school a cult? a crazy medical experiment? a hallucination? but things were much less sinister than I was assuming. This isn't intended to spoil the story- but rather prevent you from spoiling it for yourself. If I had known going in that this wasn't a thriller, I probably would have enjoyed it a bit more.

That being said, I still really liked this book. Its exploration of mental health was nuanced and didn't resort to stereotypes- as I have come to expect from Alyssa Sheinmel. One of my favourite aspects of the story were the short chapters telling the backstories of some of the other girls interspersed throughout. Everything from kleptomania, anorexia, OCD, selective mutism and drug addiction addressed, and more. The sheer amount of issues might seem overly ambitious for such as short novel, but I thought they were each given an appropriate amount of time and not glossed over. It take me a while to sort out who each of the girls were, but that was bound to happen in a book with such a large cast.

I can't help but be a little disappointed in this book because the summary sounds so good. I adore boarding school stories, found family tropes and the twelve dancing princesses (with which this book has some slight parallels). Unfortunately, my misplaced expectations brought down my enjoyment a little- but I would still without a doubt recommend it. The writing was good, characters nuanced and plot intriguing. It could have done with a little more development, but overall it was an engaging and important book.

★★★☆☆.75

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for this ARC

Release Date: 2 March 2021

This book a great book! It is so good and well written. The author really put a lot of thought into mental illness. It is a beautiful heartfelt tale about a girl dealing with her grief and the loss of her best friend. I loved it and I highly recommend it.

released march 2nd, 2021!!!

4.5, but rounding up for the amazing mental health representation in here. I was expecting this to be a thriller (because it's marked as one and the synopsis makes it appear to be), but it's not at all. It's a raw and objective look at mental illness through the eyes of a girl dealing with so much grief that her parents decide to send her off to a reform school. I'm not typically a huge fan of plain ol' contemporary YA and probably wouldn't have picked this one up had I thought that's what it was, but I am so glad that fate brought me to this baby. I cried, connected, and felt extremely well represented. An amazing novel that I think everyone should read. 4.5 stars because I did feel there was some repetitive content and the novel could have been cut about 50 pages.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for an eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but so much more. Initially I thought it would be another boarding school story with the usual drama, however this is more focused on mental health than just the usual girl drama. There was plenty of boarding school drama though so don’t worry. The main character Moira gets sent to a boarding school for “troubled “ girls and the only reason she can see why is her mom is tired of dealing with her and is mad she got a tattoo. She meets 11 other girls, all with some sort of issue, and slowly becomes friends with them. During the few months she is there she learns to recognize and deal with her own issues. I found this to be such a refreshing take on teens with mental illness and other troubles. The author puts such a positive spin on it so you don’t feel like it’s something to be ashamed of.

Follow Moira and her experience at the "castle" school. She is brought there and shown to her room, which she shares with a girl named Eleanor, another student at the castle school. In the castle school there are 12 girls in total. I enjoyed reading the novel from the various girls' POV's that were in the castle school. All the girls in the castle school seemed to be there for one reason or another, whether it be for depression, skipping school, selective mutism, OCD, etc.

I enjoyed also reading about Moira and friends' adventures with another castle school of students that seems to parallel their own school, but this one has 12 boys in it. A good novel that I recommend.