Dean Lorey

7/10, this was an ok novel which feels like a cheap imitation of Harry Potter with a few bits of originality here and there but overall this was another slog to get through. The beginning was disorienting until I realised that this was book two in the series and my library couldn't be bothered to get books one and three or they removed them some time ago but I really don't know. It starts off with three really flat characters named Charlie Benjamin, Violet Sweet and Theodore Dagget fight off some strange monsters from somewhere and then they were called to the equivalent of Hogwarts known as Nightmare Academy, how original, which was in the Bermuda Triangle and built out of boats and what could possibly go wrong with that. Then Charlie and the teachers there discuss the imminent threat of the monsters so they go to the Nether and try to stop them and the worldbuilding is fine and gets the job done however there were a few unanswered questions that I thought about like how did the Nightmare Academy and the Nether come to being and who were these monsters and there were apparently also four leader monsters whose names I forgot and they were just flat antagonists to try and stop the protagonists and guess what, the latter won but not before they destroy an entire city. In the end there was a fifth monster who killed the other four leader monsters since she didn't need them anymore and another big war is going to begin and it ends in a cliffhanger with no way of knowing what happens next. If you like books like Harry Potter read the first one or read the original ones or an alternative like Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger. It's also a shame that this series never really took off but it's an interesting series that has untapped potential and more people should know about it.… (more)