Review by Booklist Review
Ellory Morgan feels a bit isolated as an older-than-average freshman at the prestigious Warren University, arriving with a handful of community college credits and a Godwin Scholarship, which entails a full ride with high expectations and a work-study job. She immediately goes head-to-head with Hudson Graves, whose family donated the campus library, as the two of them are both brilliant Black students from vastly different backgrounds in a wealthy, white academic environment. Their paths continue to cross, with inexplicable incidents of both déjà vu and possibly magic drawing their analytical minds towards the puzzle of mysterious disappearances across the history of their campus. With their friends' help, they use a cross-section of magical heritage and institutional knowledge to delve into the mysteries, drawing them into a séance with the library ghost and other strange occurrences. As the plot untangles, a surprising twist has Ellory making life-or-death decisions for her friends. Cole's adult debut is an unusual dark academia tale that diverges from an obvious enemies-to-lovers conclusion to build a richer story.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Get Out meets The Matrix in this solid excursion into dark academia from Cole (So Let Them Burn). At 21, Ellory Morgan is older than the other freshmen at Warren University in Hartford, Conn. Additionally, her status as a Jamaican immigrant in the awkward American tax bracket where she can't afford college on her own but doesn't qualify for financial aid makes her feel she doesn't belong on the Ivy League campus. As the school year progresses, she experiences increasingly peculiar events: strange hallucinations, feelings of déjà vu, a tattoo on her neck that vanishes as soon as she sees it, and hidden notes in her own handwriting that she doesn't remember writing. One of these notes claims her hated academic rival, Hudson Graves, will help her. Together they dive into Warren's unusual occult history and, in a late and somewhat clichéd twist, discover the startling truth about the Goodwin scholarship that brought Ellory to campus. The resulting tale doesn't break any new ground, but it competently engages with the tropes of the genre, hits expected beats cleanly, and delivers a heartfelt if obvious moral about inequality. Cole's fans will be pleased. Agent: Emily Forney, BookEnds Literary. (Dec.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Ellory Morgan is desperate to prove herself worthy of her scholarship to the elite Warren University. She balances demanding classes, an infuriatingly handsome academic rival, and her snooty roommate, as well as the ever-present tension of being a Black woman on a predominantly white campus. The thing keeping Ellory up at night, however, is a lurking sense of déjà vu. With gaps in her memory and a sinister sense of doom creeping in, Ellory is caught between maintaining her hold on reality and the nagging feeling that something about Warren is desperately wrong. Dark-academia readers will be drawn to the ominous atmosphere and the book's beautiful cover. While some aspects of the story feel underdeveloped, readers will find that Ellory is immediately someone to root for, and the studies of power imbalances and privilege make this a thoughtful, intentional work that uses magic to right injustices. VERDICT In YA author Cole's (So Let Them Burn) adult debut, readers will be met with a slow start but will eventually be rewarded with a thrilling ending of just desserts.--Gina Collett
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A child of Mandeville, Jamaica, and Astoria, Queens, Ellory Morgan is determined to get the credentials she needs from America's youngest and strangest Ivy League college, even if she'll never belong and danger lurks at every turn. A 21-year-old freshman, Ellory is significantly older than her classmates. Between her age, lower-middle-class poverty (she's on scholarship), and race, she keenly feels her distance from her peers, many of whom seem to have always known each other. Tangling with the insufferably handsome and entitled Hudson Graves, who "loomed over the freshmen like an angry god" at the library that bears his family name, only worsens her misgivings. But what really cinches Ellory's unease at Warren is the magic. Buildings, even neighborhoods, seem to shift around; a soccer ball hurtling toward her stops just before impact, and a tattoo appears on her shoulder and disappears just as easily. Ellory had experienced strange occurrences in childhood, but on campus, the magic is inescapable--and so is the danger. To graduate, Ellory will have to watch her back as closely as her books and maybe even make peace with her most inscrutable rival. Connoisseurs of rivals-to-lovers stories will appreciate the palpable tension between Ellory and Hudson. Their chemistry is equally palpable. Cole's writing is vivid and creative, sometimes even poetic. She excels at conjuring Warren's special cocktail of sinister spookiness and academic intensity. The campus is deliciously dark and believably shrouded in lore and rumors of missing undergraduates. But Ellory's relentless insecurity in the face of her ongoing success grows repetitive, as do the book's frequent social critiques, which often lack nuance. For example, since students from underrepresented groups are routinely challenged for not having earned their places in elite colleges, an observation regarding privilege in these spaces seems awkward: "The wealthy bought their way in. The poor begged their way in. Both groups were praised for their admission as if their journeys had been equal." Will appeal to readers who crave its melding of fantasy and dark academia, but its spell could use a bit more seasoning. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
