Initiation (Bonfire Academy #1)

Initiation (Bonfire Academy #1)
Imogen Rose

Publication Date: 23 Novembre, 2012
Finish Date: 29 August, 2012
Format: e-book
Source: Review copy from author

From Goodreads:  Welcome to Bonfire
Academy. Set in the foothills of the alpine mountains in St.Moritz, this
exclusive private school caters to a special kind of student. Enter at
your own risk… but if you are human, you may not want to enter at all.

I
did enjoy this book, but I also had some issues with it. What made me
wanted to read this book, is the fact that it was about a boarding
school in st Moritz (a place I once visited when on vacation in
switzerland). It sounded like a good read and I was really glad when I
got asked to review it.

The story is pretty interesting, but also
full of holes. Maybe that book 2 will give some more answers, but there
where some things just missing. The story itself has an interesting
premise and there are quite some plot lines which interested me and I
wanted to see what would happen. On the other hand there was a bit too
much “unprovoked” aggression and it seemed a bit strange that fights
could so easily happen in such a big school and the staff acted like it
was a very big deal or even unusual. What bothers me is that the
aggression seems unprovoked, there is hinted at a reason, but at first
sight it just doesn’t make sense and if there is a reason it isn’t in
this book.

Also beware that while this book is YA, it deals
quite freely with sex. In this world apparently sex is quite common and
having sex with someone who isn’t you boyfriend isn’t a big deal. There
are no explicite scenes in this book, but there are many obvious hints
without details. Accept for those complaints I did enjoy the story and
was curious about what would happen. The book was overal quite
predictable, but there were some surprising turns. The writing style
flows quite nicely and even though I had some issues with this book I
did enjoy reading it.

I did liked the characters, especially
Faustine. She is very innocent and doesn’t seems to fit in the school at
first, but she changes quite a bit in the course of the book. Most side
characters could’ve used a bit more explanation and there were some
actions or lack thereof of some characters that really bothered me. I
really liked seeing Faustine develop and it’s obvious that this book is
actually about her instead of the main character, but I did like the
fact that it was told from another pov instead.

The world
building or actually lack thereof was what really bothered me. The world
that get’s introduced in this book is really interesting, there are
some supernatural species and there are also hybrids possible. I liked
this idea, but what bothered me was that at the end of the book I still
have no idea what all the supernatural species in this world are, while I
assume this is something the lead character should know, but if she
does she never telt this knowledge to the reader. Also we learn only
little bits about the world, it felt like I was missing huge parts. Just
to state a few simple things: what powers do each supernatural have?
How can hybrids be formed? why are shifter so aggressive? Why are vamps
so uncontroleable that they like to snack on every human? Why do these
schools exist? What is synching with someone and what consequences does
it have? I was quite frustrated by the lack of world building. The world
was interesting enough, but it just lacked enough explantion for me to
really enjoy it. And even though some issues got attention, like the
synching thing, there wasn’t an explantion of what it was and what
happenes when you’re synched with someone.

To conclude: I liked
the story and most of the characters, but everything could’ve used a bit
more explantion. The book lacked a bit concerning world building.
Nevertheless I did enjoy reading it and I am interested to know what
happens next.