20th Diamond: Hex Hall, Demonglass, and Spell Bound

Hello again world :)

It hasn't been long since my last post so I guess I have been having too much freetime.

How's everyone been doin? Surely I hope that you guys have a wonderful day. There's so many beautiful things in this world

Now let's start with today's topic. Today I will be doing another book review. This time it's a fiction and its entitled Hex Hall. The whole series is called the Hex Hall series which basically explains why the story is somewhere around it *plot review coming up, scroll down*. Goodreads actually recommended this book to me and to be honest, it's not bad. I mean sure some plot twists are predictable but the story is not bad, plus it's short. While other books are 600+ pages long (like Infernal Devices series and whatnots), this book is only around 300+ pages. *Which explains why I could finish the book in a few days*. But, it has vampires, werewolves, demons, fairies, warlocks, and hunters involved. So if you're sick of those stuff, don't read it, cause it's really full of it. 

Now let's begin with the plot review, and yes, SPOILER ALERT.

1. Hex Hall

The story starts with our heroine, the girl witch named Sophia. I love that name, it has a nice ring to it :) moving on, she is a witch and apparently she wants to help a friend who is in despair bcoz she got no date to prom. So Sophia, being so kind, made a love spell, which went wrong and end up with the "friend" almost telling everybody that Sophia is a witch. So that's enough trouble for Sophia to be sent to a boarding school named Hecate Hall a.k.a Hex Hall. 

Apparently, Soph's mom is not a witch and her dad is off somewhere. First day when Soph arrived, she got attacked by a nervous werewolf and all she can do is scream "bad dog!" Of course, some guy saved her and his name is Archer. Oh and he happens to be hot and has black hair. Then she continued to her room and met her roommate, who is a vampire named Jenna. And apparently later some killings happened and Jenna got the blame bcoz she's a vampire and her former roommate also died. How dramatic. Then Sophia met a bunch of witches who happen to be very beautiful, one of them is Archer's girlfriend *ooh bummer*. 

Skipping a bit of unnecessary stuff, let's go to the middle. Since the popular girls asked Soph to be a part of their coven and she refused, some weird stuff have been going on. You know, like cursed mannequins that makes the wielder create horrible dresses and stuff, which is a completely normal prank in a Prodigium school. (Prodigium: basically the general name for creatures such as vampires, werewolves, witches, etc.) Then dear Soph is approached by a ghost, who happens to be her great great grandmother, and was later exposed as a demon. Which made Sophie also a demon, not a witch. Demons have greater power than witches, according to this series. Moving on, Archer's girlfriend found out that Sophie has been going out of Hex Hall at night to train with her great great grandma, Alice the demon. So she decided to came along. After all the drama and hubbub, Archer's gf died and Sophia defeated Alice who is evil and has been doing all the killing that happened in Hex Hall.

That's basically the main plot, but what fun is the main plot without a lil bit of romance. Sooo, this guy Archer who happen to be sooo hot was put into detention of cellar duty with Sophia because both of them did something offensive in front of one of the meanest teacher in school, the so called Vandy, who was a witch but got her power removed. Cellar duty is basically making a log book of things in the cellar, and the things happen to be magical and moves around so the job is worthless. What does a girl and a boy do when they're locked in a room alone? Yes, they develop a relationship that involves kissing and making out. Classic. Of course being Archer's gf died and all, they're free to date, but noo. Apparently, for Prodigiums, being engaged to another Prodigium is normal. It's like India, they have arranged marriages. Only this time its engagement and they call it being betrothed. Sophia was betrothed too a super hot warlock who has great healing powers and is a guardian of Hex Hall. his name is Cal. Unlike Archer, he's not witty and sarcastic and a bit of sexy naughty, Cal is plain nice. And apparently, Cal has feelings for Soph. 

2. Demonglass

A plot twist that occured in the first book is that Archer, the hot guy that had making out sessions in the cellar turned out to be one of the hunter of prodigium, a group called "the Eye." They have another name, L'ochio O Dio which practically means the same thing. This group of people have been hunting prodigiums since centuries ago. Every new student that arrived at Hex Hall will be shown a video *the magical hologram video* of the Eye killing prodigiums for centuries. Sophia, knowing that Archer is one of the Eye by discovering the big eye tattoo on his chest, ran away, while Archer was left broken hearted. Dude, what do you expect? She'll be like "Oh that's fine. Let's just continue." No that will not happen! Why didn't you tell her in the first place?!

In this second book, Sophia realizes that her powers are dangerous and therefore decides to go through "The Removal" that will take away all her powers and might kill her. So her long lost father who is actually the head council of all prodigiums decided to pay a visit, after all these years, and invites his daughter Sophia to a mansion outside of Hex Hall for the summer, along with her friends Jenna the vampire and Cal the bethrothed one of course. So she did follow her dad. In the mansion, she grew closer to her dad, closer to Cal, met Lara Casnoff, the main villain of the story who is at that time like her dad's secretary *the villain is always the closest one*. Oh, and Archer's ex's ghost is not tied to Soph because they tied powers or sumthin. 

The story continues with Sophia finally reunited with Archer and they had some private time together then the bad guy Lara decided it's time to make the move. So she took away Soph's dad's powers, burn down the mansion hoping that everyone in it dies as well, which was Soph, Archer, Cal, Jenna, Soph's dad. But nooooo, our heroine, Sophia, managed to run away and went to a portal to the place Cal told her to go, which was the Branicks' place. Branicks are one of the "few" groups of hunters of Prodigiums other than "The Eye." 

That is a short review of the whole book. I didn't mention some characters such as Nick, who was one of the demons that went beserk and was used by Lara. Nick's girlfriend, also a demon and also used. Some other council members that I barely remember the names of because they died and rarely appear in the book. Please bear with me. 

3. Spellbound

The third book begins with the ending of book 2, Sophia getting out of the portal and met a Branicks girl then had a little fight. So it turns out, Soph's powers are being suppressed by Lara bcoz she was about to go through the removal and apparently, Archer's ex-gf ghost can still use magic even if she's a ghost. So she helped, A LOT. Then Sophia met the Branicks, met her mom there who is actually a Branick. What a plot twist really. So it continues. Then Cal and her dad shows up. Lara made the island in which Hex Hall is located disappear and all the students of Hex Hall is transported via gold light and twisting back to Hex Hall bcoz Lara thought of making them all demons she can control.

 One thing and another, Sophia and Archer and Jenna and Cal managed to retrieve more demonglass (demonglass: material that can fight, hurt, and kill demons) from hell and fight at the island. They eventually came to a pit where Lara was doing the whole ritual and Sophia, with her powers back, tries to close the pit and end the ritual. Poor Sophia, she fell to the pit, and hurt her knee. Then Cal jumped down to the pit, healed her knee, and pushed her up. Then the pit closes. Yes, CAL DIED IN THE END. 

Then when all is set and done, Sophia became the new council head since her father's powers are gone and she is considered a hero. She's back with Archer and Jenna is now safe. Cal eventually became a ghost that healed the Graymalkin Island, the fictional island of Hex Hall, and Archer's ex-gf, who is a ghost, decided to stay with him. Awww. 

Fin

Not a bad story, and considering the time I spent reading them, it's worth it. I guess I missed out a lot of characters in the review, but it doesn't really affect the main plot that much. Basically that's the story. I find the third book the most enjoyable to read, maybe because Sophia got her power back and now she's all powerful. I didn't really like the fact that Cal died; however, he's gonna have some company so I guess that's good. Overall, it's a 7 out of 10. Not average, but not rilly that good either that I'm going to read it all over again. If there's ever a movie about it, I'd probably watch it. 

Another fact I just found out is that this book is somehow related to Disney. Maybe in terms of publishers and all. The author Rachel Hawkins has also released a spin-off of the Hex Hall series, entitled School Spirit. The story is around one of the Branicks girl, Izzi. See, I didn't mentioned Izzy in my plot review. I don't think I'll be reading the book though because I'm not really interested in the character of Izzy. 

Another book I have started to read is Beautiful Creatures. Oh yes it's an old book, but I've watched the movie and it sucked....my friends said the book was awesome though so I'll be reading that. I have also finished reading Bram Stoker's Dracula which was amazing as a classic. I think I need to read other books that does not involve vampires or magic. Alice in Wonderland? I think so. 

Anyways, thank you for reading this review and I hope it will be useful to you. Feel free to comment or critic on anything that went wrong. I might have falsely remembered somethings haha. See you on the next post!

Sincerely yours, 

Alicia V