Set in a 'progressive' boarding school staffed by oddballs and attended by the offspring of the rich and famous, this book put me in mind of Hogwarts and I was constantly expecting someone to whip out a wand (though it's worth pointing out this pre-dates the Harry Potter series by some years). Characters were well drawn, and the depiction of bullying was compelling and often shocking - the author writing from personal experience, as the strikingly heartfelt afterword makes clear. What I liked most of all, though, was the way the author depicted the changing seasons. ("November days were strung together by threads of rain like numbers on a calendar"). You could feel the mud, the snow, the sun and the grass. Ordinarily those might be the more tedious parts of a novel but in this one they were a constant joy. ( )

A savage portrayal of a fictional public school in which the normal lines of authority are abrogated. Instead of inculcating a Utopian micro-society in which everyone strives together in the shared cause of learning bullies run rife and the girls are subjected to awful degradation at the hands of senior boys.
It is also very touching with a very sensitive picture of first love against the backcloth of violence.
While not quite as accomplished as her later works, this book still enables Amanda Craig to demonstrate her marvellous gift for telling a story that effortlessly hooks the reader, and compels them to sink further and further into her own slightly lopsided world. ( )