Hexbound Book EvaluationDanielle Sonobe What do magic, werewolves, vampires, and boarding school all have in common? Lily Parker. In the book Hexbound, by Chloe Neil, Lily Parker gets used to life in a new school, a strange best friend Scout, and bratty high school girls. Oh yeah, and her second life beneath the Windy City battling soul-sucking magic hoarders at night. The criterion I use to identify a good book is interesting characters and a plot twist. Hexbound definitely had interesting characters that intrigued me to pick it up and read it. The main characters had unique magical powers and throughout the book vampires, werewolves, and even strange slimy rat creatures were mentioned. Early on in the book on page 3, you find out that Lily Parker has a special gift of magic called firespell, and Scout is a witch. Both of their boyfriends are werewolves and all of them are part of a secret group in Chicago called Enclave Three. Other characters included in the book are Reapers, people who are corrupted by the power of having magic, stuck up high school girls, vampires turned against each other, and the creatures. On page 21, the creatures are described as “half walking, half crawling… They were human- shaped but smaller than your average adult. They were bald, with pointed ears and milky eyes, and their fingers were thin and tipped by long, pointed white nails… Their naked skin glistened in the light, a trail of slime on the ground beneath and behind them.” From all of this evidence you can clearly see that this book included one piece of criterion for a good book. The book fell a little short for an amazing plot twist, which was my second piece of criterion for a good book. The author had pieces of information that surprised me but there wasn’t really a great, shocking plot twist. I also think that the book could’ve exaggerated the characters’ emotions and the overall feeling of the events too. Everything moved very quickly and it seemed like not a lot of the book was written from deep within her heart. The book really only scratched the surface of emotion for me. This book didn’t reach the height I was hoping for in a good book. Overall, Hexbound was an okay book but it definitely isn’t 5 star quality. Really interesting characters were in the book and I loved reading about them and getting to know them. Despite this, the story pretty much stayed at a flat line for me, because there weren’t many surprises or interesting twists or turns. I wouldn’t recommend this book to other eighth grade students, but maybe younger kids. I don’t think that this book has all the excitement and feeling kids my age like to read. It also didn’t have anything that eighth graders could really relate too except for maybe two or three things. From reviewing this book, I determined that a good writer needs to put a lot of feeling into their words and really connect with the reader. They need to be descriptive and include events that make the reader not want to put down the book. The simple fact that it has taken me several MONTHS to finish this book should tell you my opinion of it. I will admit that this is the second book in a series, and I didn't read the first one. But I have done that with other series and been fine! This story follows a teenager attending a girls boarding school in Chicago; but most of her time is spent battling shady forces in the underworld passages of Chicago as a kind of magical apprentice known as an Adept. There is a sprinkling of love with a teenage werewolf and a mysterious connection to a bad boy I just know we will be hearing more about in later episodes. The story is fine, but it all felt somewhat blase and vague to me.
What do You think about Hexbound (2011)?
Good story with light romance good read fast read and a short book
—Ashley
I love d book will recommend it to anyone....
—Olicity
Liked this. Nice clean story and good plot.
—Woods
