2.5/5 rounded up. Super sad to not have fallen in love with this book. Based off the beginning, I had my hopes high. But it’s just an underwhelming book for me and, in my opinion, it’s too close to seeming like Harry Potter but without the magic.

Emmy’s father is MIA and whether he’s alive or not is not certain. Although Emmy barely remembers her father since he left when she was 2 or 3 (I think it was 3), she still feels like she wants to know what happened to him or why he left. One day Emmy finds a mysterious box with medallions in it and a note from her father basically asking her to keep them safe.

Emmy’s mom sends her to Wellsworth boarding school and some mysteriously events begin to happen. Along with her friends, Jack and Lola, she discovers information about some secret Order and possibly a connection between them and her father. Maybe some accidents around the boarding school were never really “accidents” either. And maybe it isn’t so safe for Emmy on the campus.

Similarities to Harry Potter that I just felt were too similar is the secret ‘Order’, there are Houses in the school you can belong to, some nice and some questionably evil teachers, and at the end — summer approaching so school not in session so Emmy’s going back with her mom — Emmy makes a comment about she’s not going home cause Wellsworth is her home. Cue a young Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) “I’m not going home…not really.”

I really loved the idea of this book and I could have overlooked the HP similarities if I enjoyed the overall story. It started out promising, but I just grew bored. Nothing too original happened and I’m sorry to say all this. I really wanted to love this from how it started off.