Within The Network, sixteen year-old Bianca is cursed. In order to save herself, her mother and grandmother from the curse, Bianca must find a way to work with Miss Mabel, the only one who can remove the curse. As a first-year student at Miss Mabel's School for girls, Bianca is not expected to enter The Competition, a deadly test of skills usually reserved for third year witches. Winning The Competition is the only way to work directly with Miss Mabel. Bianca must use all of her skills in hexes, curses, cunning and potions in order to show her worth and outwit Miss Mabel. Miss Mabel is more cruel then she seems and Bianca soon finds herself bound to Miss Mabel and her sinister intentions for the whole Network.

Miss Mabel's School for Girls is a fast-paced Young Adult fantasy. Miss Mabel's jumps right into the action as Bianca finds her way into the school and immediately volunteers for The Competition. I felt a little lost within the world of The Network and Miss Mabel's at first, but I was absorbed by the action. It was apparent that Bianca is determined to reverse her curse and tenacious, but I wanted to know more about the curse and its dangers. One of the best parts of the story for me were the characters. There are many well written female characters with distinct personalities; in fact, there are barely male characters in the book. Some of my favorites are the friends Bianca made, Leda and Camille. These young women formed a wonderful friendship that helped Bianca through her trials with Miss Mable. Miss Mable was deliciously vicious in her teachings, coming up with vile and malicious ways to test Bianca and what she needed from her. The book ends on a large cliffhanger with nothing resolved and a whole host of new issues, so it looks like I'll need to dive into the next book in the series.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

Witches are an automatic must-read for me, but this one just didn't do it for me. I think it was a case of its-me-not-the-book, because I can't pinpoint any particular reason. Maybe it was just not my thing.

I received this book for free through Netgalley way back in 2015, but I never got around to reading it back then. I recently came across this book again and decided to pick it up. WHY DID I NOT READ THIS SOONER?

This book kind of reminded me of Harry Potter. Not in an annoying rip-off kinda way, but in a 'YAAAS give me more of this please' kinda way. There's a land of witches where no mortal lives, with magical schools, and potions, curses, hexes and dark magic and... there's a war coming.

I loved this book. I liked the main character who isn't your typical YA standard main girl. She's strong, not to be messed with, secretly a bad-ass, but also still a 16-year old. There is absolutely 0 weird romance/love triangle happening. The focus is completely on the story and the world Bianca operates in. It all feels well thought out and I like that. I also really appreciated that this book does not just focus on one event. Since this book is part of a series, it could have just focused on the Competition that is happening in this book. But it doesn't. After the Competition there's more! So big points for that.

This book managed to get me out of my reading slump and I will be reading all the other books in this serie for sure.