cj daugherty | bookrapt blog

Title: Night School – Resistance (Night School #4)
Author: C.J. Daugherty
Publisher: Atom
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Mystery
Source: Review copy received from German publisher – thank you!
In a nutshell: Just skip this book and read the next installment in the series.

Finding refuge at a secret location in the south of France, Allie almost convinces herself she’s safe – until Nathaniel’s guards attack. Then she’s on the run again, and forced to return to the one place she can truly call home: Cimmeria Academy. But when she arrives, she barely recognises it. Tensions are on a knife edge. Now most of the students have deserted the school, the teachers can’t be trusted and guards are in charge. Worse, Nathaniel is close – very close – to getting everything he wants. Desperate to do something – anything! – to stop him, Allie agrees to accompany Lucinda on a dangerous late-night mission. But in doing so, is she putting her friends’ lives at risk? Carter and Sylvain are both ready to fight by her side – and prove their love. Allie knows she must make up her mind once and for all about who she really wants. No one will wait for ever. The time for indecision is over. Everything is at stake and winner takes all…

My thoughts

I don’t know exactly how to start this review. The book starts off REALLY fast-paced, really promising — but it just cannot keep up this tension. Anyway. Allie has been on the run from Nathaniel for quite some time now – not only is he totally power-crazed and doing anything in his power to destroy Lucinda, Allie’s grandmother; he also tries to take over Cimmeria aka Night School aka Allie’s boarding school. So at the beginning of the story, Allie’s hiding place happens to be a big mansion in France which also happens to belong to Sylvain’s parents — until she and Sylvain are suddenly found by Nathaniel’s “henchmen” which results in a hot pursuit. After these events those two are sent back to Night School since there seems to be no safe place for them — and this is where the story goes downhill. Cimmeria has actually changed quite a lot during Allie’s absence. There are school guards everywhere now, even in the boarding house which is why the students’ personal liberty has restricted (okay, that sounds really dramatic but basically, they just cannnot do anything they want in their leisure time anymore. Or at least in its entirety). Nonetheless, the book has not lost its “boarding school charm” which is one of the reasons I have enjoyed all the books in the series so far (more or less).
Allie is not an easy person in this book — it is definitely hard to sympathize with her in Resistance. I still have her as a brave and tough fighter in mind, but in this book, she acts really immature and super naive. She always rushes into making decisions, drawing her friends’ grudge (who, on the other hand, I could totally understand) and starts crying when nobody can understand her loneliness during her mission to defeat Nathaniel. Don’t get me wrong, but there were many scenes where I would have really liked to slap her face. Also, she often makes her decisions on a self-centred and egocentric basis, whithout regard to her friends. Dafuq? And have I already mentioned that she has become much whinier? Because she has. This is why I have the feeling that the secondary characters were kind of neglected in the story — I really wish there would have been more scenes with – for instance – Carter, Allie’s second love interest. Or Rachel whose relationship to Allie really suffers from the circumstances at Cimmeria. We however also meet some new characters in the book who give some fresh impetus to the story.

To crown it all, it is revealed that Nathaniel has placed one of his sidekicks at Night School — one of the teachers is betraying Cimmeria Academy. Unfortunately, it was pretty obvious and predictible who the traitor was — in a way, the book just follows the typical “villain pattern”.
There is not much to say in the romance department. At least not for me. There is this love triangle which totally sucks and seems to be like the Biggest. Love triangle. Fail. Ever!!! Allie’s “oh my gosh, who will I choose, I’ll die brokenhearted” thoughts take up like a third of the story although it is totally clear with whom she’ll end up (and I say it because you can guess it from the very first page). Seriously, Allie definitely does not earn any sympathy points in those scenes.
Of course there are some “sham twist” here and there but they do not really add to the story or create some tension. NADA! Instead, they seem insincere and implausible; even fake somehow.
The only reason I kept reading the book (aside from the fact that I received it as a free review copy) is definitely the author’s style of writing. Her style of writing is so casual and light; it is kept simple and thus, is very pleasant to the reader. There is something entertaining in her writing style. There were, however, some scenes that made me chuckle: Quite a lot of teenage slang is used in the book (which is not necessarily bad) but there are some phrases which even I did not quite understand although I am in the same age group of those kids.

I am not quite sure why I’m giving this book 3 stars because it certainly deserves less. Maybe it is because of the end — it definitely made up all the lash previous chapters. One twists quickly follows an other one — you are almost overwhelmed by those impressions and the amount of information you get in the last few pages. However, there were just some things due to happen which is why I whish that some scenes would just have taken place earlier in time.
Honestly? For me, this book could have been cut out in the whole Night School series. It’s more of a fill-in than a truely exciting read — there just seems to be no progress in the series. It’s like the book has come to a dead end, as if the story was going round in circles….if there were not the ending which eventually brings some buzz into the story again. Anyways, for fans of the Night School series, Resistance is definitely a must-read; for sporadic readers….not. It will ensure you some entertaining reading hours, though.