Wildwood Academy book review

Wildwood Academy by Jacqueline Silvester
Goodreads

15-year-old Nikka is invited to attend Wildwood Academy, a prestigious but secret boarding school for talented youth located deep in the Californian mountains. Once there, Nikka quickly falls in love with her bizarre classes, the jaw-dropping scenery and... two very different boys.

However, Wildwood Academy has a dark and twisted secret, one that could cost Nikka the one thing she had never imagined she could lose, the one thing that money can’t buy. It is this very thing that Wildwood Academy was created to steal.

Nikka can stay and lose everything, or she can risk death and run.

***About the Author***

Jacqueline has had a colourful and dual life thus far; she's lived in a refugee camp in Sweden, a castle in France, a village in Germany, and spent her formative years in between Los Angeles, London and New York. As a result, she speaks four languages. Jacqueline has a Bachelors in English Literature from the University Of Massachusetts, and a Masters in Screenwriting from Royal Holloway, University Of London. After graduating she wrote her first novel and began writing cartoon screenplays. The two years she spent in an arts boarding school in the woods have inspired the particular world described in her debut novel Wunderkids. She lives in London with her husband, her excessive YA collection and a hyper husky named Laika.

Wunderkids has been translated into a number of languages and featured in Vogue magazine!

This was another book that I bought at my first YALC and never got around to reading. I was intrigued by the premise and the concept, especially as it was based around a school with a mystery. I will say I don’t think the payoff was there for this book, it spiralled out of control a little bit by the end. I was kind of left me reeling a little and I wasn’t sure just how realistic the whole story line was. Especially with the issues that were going on within the school and amounting suspicions. I also thought that the story was too long, it definitely could have been cut down by half, and get rid of some of the filler content. I did enjoy the story but it wasn’t one of my favourites and I don’t know whether I will be continuing on with the series, it definitely didn’t push me to straight away.

I have to say that I didn’t really connect with the characters, there were so many introduced and they didn’t seem to be overly developed. I thought that the majority of Wildwood Academy was rushed and that meant that we weren’t given the time to get to know the characters in depth and we were waiting for more information and more time with each of them to really understand what motivated them as a person and what their point in the story was. I was really disappointed with Nikka in this story and the way she dealt with building relationships.

I think the best bit of Wildwood Academy was the fact that the school was quite well described and was an interesting concept especially with the way everything was working for the curriculum. I definitely wouldn’t mind being a part of this school program. I think that the different events that happened within the school grounds were well written and well described, I really loved the mystery element of the story and I enjoyed reading all about the intrigue and trying to find out exactly what was happening and what was going on.

I think the worst bit of Wildwood Academy would definitely have to be the unrealistic nature of everything that was happening. I struggled to understand how a school would get away with everything that they apparently had done. I also didn’t quite understand if it was such a mastermind plan how it was basically uncovered by a bunch of teenagers. I would have wanted there to have been more to the story and more to the mystery, I know that there is a second book so I’m not sure whether it goes into more detail but for me this book didn’t cut it in that regard.

I don’t know that I would recommend Wildwood Academy, I think there are better mystery books out there and I’m not sure whether this is the most realistic of story lines. I wanted more from the characters as well and I definitely think that it falls short in that respect.

Have you read more of this series? Does it get any better? Let me know!