Dark Companion by Marta Acosta

Goodreads Blurb

When foster teen Jane Williams is invited to attend elite Birch Grove Academy for Girls and escape her violent urban neighborhood, she thinks the offer is too good to be true. She's even offered her own living quarters, the groundskeeper's cottage in the center of the birch grove.
Something's not quite right about the school -- or is it Jane? She thinks she sees things in the birch grove at night. She's also beginning to suspect that the elegant headmistress and her sons are hiding secrets. Lucky is the gorgeous, golden son who is especially attentive to Jane, and Jack is the sardonic puzzling brother.
The school with its talented teachers and bright students is a dream for a science and math geek like Jane. She also loves her new friends, including hilarious poetry-spouting rich girl, Mary Violet. But the longer Jane stays at Birch Grove, the more questions she has about the disappearance of another scholarship girl and a missing faculty member.
Jane discovers one secret about Birch Grove, which only leads to more mysteries. What is she willing to sacrifice in order to stay at this school...and be bound to Birch Grove forever?

(Possibly the most non-professional review in the last 4 months. Before that, all reviews were bad. )

I HAVE. SUCH. MIXED. FEELINGS. ABOUT THIS BOOK.

Jane definitely one of my favorite characters. She seemed to think she was better than everyone; the kids in her group home because she was smarter and got into the Birch Grove Academy, but better than the Birch Grove girls because she clawed her way from the bottom. In fact, even one of the secondary characters stated “…acting like you don’t think you’re better than them, when you do because you did it on your own.”. She annoyed me so much and seemed shallow and pathetic. She was attracted to Lucky because he was handsome and rich and tutored him to be nearer to him and get money. Really? And this was when she literally just met him. Meanwhile, she immediately hated Jack, Lucky’s brother which annoyed me furthermore because hey, I’m definitely a fan of him! But the pathetic part? Even after everything Lucky had done, she was still obsessed with him, still longing for him and I wanted to rip her throat out.  So. Badly. AND she was so, so blind about who she liked, and what made her “alive”. Sigh. And, just throwing this out there—who gets in a car with someone you met once in a store?

On the other hand, the writing was absolutely lovely and smooth. It flowed well and told the story beautifully. I was instantly captivated by the prologue and the mysterious things happening at Birch Grove sealed the deal. Secrets were everywhere and while I predicted one (Well, sort of. Let’s just say that no one sparkles.) the rest blew me away!

Throughout the entire book. I fell asleep thinking about what would happen next in this book and I was not disappointed.

As for world building, it was definitely a bit…mixed. And as a sort of spoiler, science (mutations.) and supernatural (Lady of the Wood) were swirled in Dark Companion. I loved that while Jane uncovered each secret, other things were happening, things that didn’t seem very important then, but were suddenly essential clues to the ending. This book, admittedly, doesn’t have many plot twists, but it’s paced quickly and the few it had definitely shocked me! Dark companion isn’t all fight-action-y, but it has this subtle-action. Is it bad to compare it to politics bookified? Because it was definitely like that, in my crazy logical way.

In a few words, Marta Acosta can weave a scene, a world, a feeling, missing nothing. Main character aside, Dark Companion was an amazing gothic romance perfect for late-night reading  daytime dreaming! Definitely pick this one up soon! It’ll stun your socks off for sure!

Pages: 368

Series: Stand-alone

Genre: Gothic Literature/Romance/Supernatural

Publisher: Tor

Release Date: July 3

Rating: 3.5--->4 stars

“It's a mystery to me why extraordinary young women insist that they're normal.”