Elizziebooks

Before reading the first sentence of this novel, I had heard quite a bit about this novel. I heard it was good, I heard it was alright, I heard it was like Harry Potter, etc. Even when I had heard all of this, I hadn't fully grasped what this book was truly about and what it entailed. (also, I found this book in the Children's section at Books-a-million.) Knightley Academy is about this school that decides to open their entrance exam to commoners this year. The three main characters come from very humble backgrounds and are lucky to even survive their stay at Knightley Academy. Someone is after them, out to get them expelled. This novel follows Henry Grim on his journey to solve this mystery and to bring things back to normal. Even for a little while.I thought the writing was fantastic. Not only was the grammar perfect, but so was the content. Violet introduces these political ideas without it reading like some ploy to brainwash the reader. She talks about class and war and other such important things in the novel with grace and logic. I feel like she accurately described how people at the time were being treated. The scenes were written quite well. I felt like I was in the Knightley Academy, walking around with the students, walking into the Headmaster's house, the offices, the armory. The storyline was quite original, with the mysterious plot to get Henry and his friends kicked out and all of the crazy things that kept happening to them.The characters were pretty good. Some of them, like Lord Havelock, surprised me by being so nice in the end. I liked Henry, Rohan, and Adam all the way through. I'm glad to say I was never really annoyed with any of the characters. I thought Frankie was a nice addition and gave a lot of good outside perspective to her friendship with the three boys.This was quite an enjoyable novel. It wasn't too crazy with how the mystery played out, but it played out realistically. At least what I think would be realistically in a Victorian-era knight academy. I don't think I was on the edge of my seat as much as I thought I would be, but it lead up to the climax very well and resolved in a nice place.