The Crazy School

Madeline Dare #2

by Cornelia Read

From the acclaimed author of A Field of Darkness comes another compelling novel featuring the acerbic and memorable voice of ex-debutante Madeline Dare.

Madeline Dare has finally escaped rust-belt Syracuse, New York, for the lush Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts. After her husband's job offer falls through, Maddie signs on as a teacher at the Santangelo Academy, a boarding school for disturbed teenagers. Behind the academy's ornate gates, she discovers a disturbing realm where students and teachers alike must submit to the founder's bizarre therapeutic regimen. From day one, Maddie feels uneasy about smooth-talking Dr. Santangelo but when she questions his methods, she's appalled to find that her fellow teachers would rather turn on each other than stand up for themselves, much less protect the students in their care. A chilling event confirms Maddie's worst suspicions, then hints at an even darker secret history, one that twines through the academy's very heart. Cut off from the outside world, Maddie must join forces with a small band of the school's most violently rebellious students-kids whose troubled grip on reality may well prove to be her only chance of salvation.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Mystery Thriller, Thriller, Audiobook, Adult

326 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

I have circumnavigated the globe, throwing up in many of the world's airports as I hate to fly. I was born in Manhattan, and spent my childhood racketing around from New York to California to Oahu.

I know old-school WASP culture firsthand, having been born into the tenth (and last) generation of my mother's family to live on Oyster Bay's Centre Island. I was subsequently raised near Big Sur by divorced hippie-renegade parents. My childhood mentors included Sufis, surfers, single moms, Black Panthers, Ansel Adams, draft dodgers, striking farmworkers, and Henry Miller's toughest ping-pong rival.

I am now at home molding the characters (evil laugh here) of my twin daughters, the younger of whom has severe autism. I am the world's worst housewife, nicknamed by my intrepid spouse "a lighting rod for entropy in the universe."

I like to read a lot, being especially fond of the backs of cereal boxes and badly garbled assembly instructions written by persons for whom English is not the language of choice (although my all-time favorite bit of writing was contained in the song list on a bootleg Dylan tape in Hong Kong, which claimed "Bowling in the Wind" was the first cut on side A).

For the last several generations, my family's motto has been "Never a Dull Moment." None of us know how you would say this in Latin. I subscribe to my sister's gustatory philosophy, which is that "there are two kinds of food in the world: food that's good, and food that needs more salt."

My two favorite songs are Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" and that little bit of Bach Glenn Gould plays right when the Tralfamadorians are coming out of the stars to kidnap Billy Pilgrim and his old dog Spot in the movie version of Slaughterhouse Five. The Rolling Stones doing "King Bee" gets an honorable mention.

I have now published two novels, A Field of Darkness and The Crazy School. Field was nominated for seven awards, including the Edgar for best first novel. I am also the grateful recipient of a 2008 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship.

I would like to be Winston Churchill when I grow up.

Reviews

[CS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bullet Review:

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh...it was okay. Highly readable but dayum, not as mysterious or thrillerish as the cover blurb would indicate. Took waaay too long to get to the mystery. And the mystery got wrapped up so quickly, so pattly, like a Nancy Drew book.

And the never-ending ending!

But still, it wasn't so bad I couldn't finish.

Full Review:

Madeline Dare has moved with her husband, Dean, to Massachusetts to teach at Santangelo Academy, a boarding school for difficult teens. (It quickly becomes apparent that this is actually the second book in a series, though that knowledge doesn't make it more difficult to read.) But the whole atmosphere of the Academy from the teachers to the students to especially the headmaster, is strange. Eventually (seriously, this happens like halfway through the book!), two teenagers are poisoned, and Madeline gets accused of their murder.

So I suppose I should write a full review of this, though it's one of those books where you end up feeling "meh" about it and really have very little to say. It's a book where I opened it up thinking it would be one thing, seeing it was something else, and really just leaving at the end feeling not quite satisfied but not discontent enough to really rage.

I found this book at Borders (God, I miss that place!) when I was going through my mystery/thriller kick (it's weird how I do that - it was mystery/thriller, then old scifi, then fantasy, then urban fantasy, then YA...and now it's just whatever I already own). Then I promptly placed it on a bookshelf and pretty much forgot about it except when I was culling. Somehow this book survived a move and at least two cullings, before I picked it up on a whim. The back intrigued me JUST ENOUGH to keep it but I always wondered if I would like it.

When I did start reading, one of the things I did actually appreciate was how "readable" it was. It is a very smooth read, with a good steady pace, one that keeps you moving forwards - even if at the end of a chapter you wondered where the hell the story was going. Also, I kinda liked Madeline; she was kinda cool.

Tepid compliments, but that's how I feel.

The cover blurb I feel is very deceptive.

Cover Blurb: She discovers a disorienting world where students and teachers alike must submit to the founder's bizarre therapeutic regimen.
Reality: Madeline has actually been working at this school for some time. She's not even the newest of the teachers - Pete is.

Cover Blurb: A chilling event confirms Maddie's worst suspicions...
Reality: This "chilling event" is a double homicide, which occurs almost halfway through the book.

Cover Blurb: ...leading her to an even darker secret that lies at the academy's very heart.
Reality: And this is the last 20 or so pages of the book. Which you can pretty much predict after the murders occur.

Cover Blurb: Now cut off from the outside world...
Reality: HUH??? Madeline was never "cut off" from the outside world. She was always in contact with her husband, Dean, and she had numerous friends she could trust.

Cover Blurb: ...Maddie must join forces with a small band of the school's most violently rebellious students.
Reality: Madeline gets help from two of the students on a couple of occasions. Yes, they are violent and rebellious, but geez, don't make it sound like she forms a small milita!!

It's just so...off! A person might think this book is one of those creepy thrillers you watch at night near Halloween, but it's really not. It's disconcerting, sure, but it's not really creepy. (How can it be creepy when the headmaster, the supposed "creepy" leader of this cult is barely in it and when he is, he's in a pink flight suit learning how to fly a heliocopter?!) It's not really a thriller (there were no "edge of your seat" scenes whatsoever), not really a mystery (sure, there's the "who killed the kids" but if you have two brain cells to rub together, you'll figure it out moments after it happens), not really contemporary. Just a modest book about a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking teacher living in this super-repressive school, and it being somewhat disturbing.

And really, that's about all I can say about this book. The book was readable, wasn't so disturbing I had to stop, wasn't so enticing that I was enraptured by it, and had a very deceptive cover blurb.

I hate writing these types of reviews!

[Brenan · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were parts of this book I really loved, but the parts I loved did not outweigh the parts I completely despised, which included:
1. The depiction of Madeline as this life changing teacher in this school where all the kids really need are more people like her. In reality, I think if kids like the kids in that book (who seemed to have been written by someone who has never, in my opinion, had a conversation with a teenager) had as their only adult role model Madeline Dare, they would be worse off than they were when they got to the school. Her cursing and smoking and sneaking around breaking rules with the students did not endear her to me.
2. The motive and identity of the killer (and the killer's past) was about as stupid as can be.
3. The final chapter. Really? (which I will not post here for risk of spoiling things
Bleh.
The only reason I didn't give it one star was because it was an easy, relatively entertaining read. It was only when I walked away from the book that the things I disliked became so clear.

[Rita · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eh. It was eh. I liked her first book, Field of Darkness. It had a lot of holes in it, but I really liked the main character and forgave the unevenness of the writing and the plot because it was her first book.

Crazy School is her second book, same main character, but it’s a big step down from the other book. She relied too heavily on the work she’d done building up the characters in the first book and was negligent with developing them further in this one.

And the timeframe was weird. It was a little odd in the first book, too, but weirder in this one. The first book took place in the mid 80’s, and the main character was in her mid-twenties. In this one, the book is in 1989 and the character is in her later-twenties. It’s hard enough in the Sue Grafton books (A is for Alibi, etc) to remember that Kinsey doesn’t age in real time, but rather from book to book, so that those take place in the 80’s. But, Sue Grafton can do that because she’s a well-established author and she started that series in the 80’s and that’s how she chose her character to age. But, for this book, from someone brand new, it’s just strange. Why not make it real time? What was the point in having the time lapse, other than laziness on the part of the author, not wanting to update things to real-time.

Anyway, in this book, Madeline was teaching troubled teens inside a very bizarre psychiatric institution. It was poignant to me because 1) I was a troubled teen in the late 80’s, so much so that I could have almost been one of the kids in the institution she wrote about (mine would have been more circa 1986 though) and 2) I was a social worker in an almost identical institution in Ohio just a few years later (’92-early ’94), so I could identify with both sides in this book with just a little wiggle room with the ages on either side. So, I can say with complete authority, she had it all wrong.

The dialect was wrong, for both sides (I don’t remember anyone saying, “dude” in 1989, that’s a much more recent thing), and her psychobabble seemed second-hand fake and mocking. Nobody I worked with in social work was anything like this main character (but maybe that’s because this main character was soooo much better at her job than any of us were—big eye roll here). And none of the kids had any depth at all. Then the character's proclamation at the end about how therapy is worthless for depression and you should just take prozac was so out of left field, it was just the fitting ending for such a freaky and ill-written book.

I don’t know why I bothered finishing the book, really, other than the turf being so familiar in so many ways, but mishandled so offensively that I just had to see it to its end.

Not a great mystery, not a great storyline, no wonderful character development, the dialog was choppy and inaccurate. I guess it’s worse than an “eh” when all is said and done. I guess it sucked, dude.

[J. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Review Of The Book :
She's a swaggering, snippy, snarky babe-detective. Takes on any phoneys and cuts to the chase. She's Nancy Drew with attitude. Entry level mystery, with contrived chain of clues, overly-concocted resolution.

Review Of The Acknowledgments :
Well once you settle into the two full pages of the author's acknowledgments, you'd think she'd just navigated the Kalahari or solved the Middle East crisis or something. Really a lot of self regard here, AND THEN SHE MENTIONS EVERY BOOKSTORE SHE'S DONE ON THE LAST ROADSHOW. Which is when you, the reader, realize : this book was even a little worse than you were thinking it was.

[Bonnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audible
Crazy book !

[Ellz Readz · Rating 3 out of 5]

My thoughts...For me, reading The Crazy School was a bit like riding a roller coaster. It has its ups and its downs. Let me start with what I liked about the book. The plot of this story contains a huge mystery to be solved. This mystery is written in a way that you have no idea who can be trusted, who is lying, or manipulating everyone in the story. I second-guessed everyone. The characters were interesting. It is my understanding that the school portrayed is based on an actual institution. In today's society it seems to be a stretch that places like this exist, however the book takes place in 1989. While shocking at times, I found it believable, scary but believable.

The Crazy School has quite a bit of shock value. I was shocked by the way the students and the teachers conversed. I was shocked by the language and innuendos. Initially (mainly due to the cover), I thought this was a YA story. It's not. I stumbled through parts of the story because I wasn't sure if certain parts were an attempt at crude humor or a display of the twisted reality of this school.
Overall, I liked the book. Cornelia Read has a unique writing style that won't appeal to everyone, but would entertain a wide range of readers.

[Darrell · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Porsche shifted hard and steered harder, suspension so tight that running over a fingernail pairing at eighty could have you pissing blood for a week."

The first half of this book is about a foul-mouthed teacher trying to help some troubled students. It was somewhat engaging, however about half way through it turns into a standard whodunit. This is apparently a sequel since there are vague references to previous events that leave the reader more confused than tantalized. The Crazy School is mainly composed of dialogue which makes for an extremely quick read. The dialogue flows well, however when Read ventures outside of the quotation marks the results are often unfortunate. For example, we get the following sentence after our narrator lights a birthday cake and asks someone else to dim the lights: "Dhumavati held the door for him, and I headed forward with the blazing confection once he'd finished the task." One thing I did like about this book is that it ridicules therapists who think everybody's problems are caused by repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse. More broadly, it demonstrates how silly pop psychology of the late 1980s was in general.

[Zona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was totally enthralled by this story! I found so many parallels between Madeline and myself. Cornelia Read gave Madeline such a fantastic voice and I found myself giggling at every chapter until the end when I was just awestruck by the story. Even then I was cracking a smile while on the edge of my seat.
Although I'm not of Madeline's generation, I felt a kinship with her as I read along. I loved her husband Dean and her good friend Lulu. I also adored the students, especially Weisner and Sitzman. I've always been partial to the troubled smartasses though! The characters are compelling, the plot is driving, and the climax has you clenched and eager for resolution, but sad when you know the story's done. I hated turning that last page because I didn't want it to end.
It's almost 1am and I just couldn't put it down. I had to know how it finished. The story is incredible. I would highly recommend to anyone. Especially teachers.
DO READ!

[Ellie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the "climax" part of the story. I liked the twists. Near the end, it seemed to try and smash everything in at the same time. It was almost like the author was quick to end it. I also thought that this book could be shorter, if it didn't have some scenes drawn out, or it could've at least been more entertaining and not boring. If the book was from the students point of view, it would've been a good young adult book.

But as for it, and how it is now, it just didn't "move me." Bummer. I had high expectations for this one because it sounded like a good idea for a story, but it didn't keep me on my seat.

[Carly · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, but I just didn't. Although I can appreciate its creative, twisted plot, I constantly wished for better character development and more believable dialogue, especially in the latter three-fourths of the book. I felt almost tricked by the beginnning of the book, when my interest was piqued by an intriguing setting, a smart, somber tone, and progressively complicated characters. Just when I felt engaged and invested though, the story unexpectedly abandoned those satisfactory qualities and turned into an insane, over-the-top murder mystery. Unfortunately, it never calms back down from this and simply never produces the substance that I seek in a good book.

[Bette Ammon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Crazy School" is Cornelia Read's second book. It too features the fearless and frank Madeline Dare ("A Field of Darkness"). Here Madeline is teaching in a boarding school for wayward teens. Her feelings of outrage and unrest turn out to be justified when two students are murdered and Madeline herself becomes a suspect. The dialogue is snappy and the language is realistically graphic.

[Rachel Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gobbled this one up. Madeline Dare, the protagonist, has a great harsh/funny voice.

[Quoilire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je ne connaissais pas Cornelia Read et son Ecole des dingues est plutôt une bonne surprise.


Ce n'est pas le roman du siècle, mais l'auteure y instaure un climat de suspense, de pression, une ambiance malsaine où tout le monde semble avoir des soucis psychologiques, analysée et sous emprise de psychotrope, que l'on a du mal à lâcher le livre.

on se retrouve avoir un esprit légèrement pervers puisque l'on poursuit la lecture pour voir comment tout se petit monde va déraper, quel mal va surgir dans cette communauté. D'ailleurs ce serait le point négatif du roman, on s'attend à ce que cela aille un peu plus loin, on reste un peu sur notre faim sadique.


Ce talent, peu de romanciers l'ont, et en certains points il m'a fait penser à celui Stephen King où l'horreur surgit le plus simplement possible là où on ne l'attend pas.

https://quoilire.wordpress.com/2022/0...

[Almeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did I sleep through the first in the series?

Here the characters are so much more memorable. Plucky!

[Lili's Bookshelf · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun but confusing book. I really enjoy the character of Madeline Dare- she’s definitely over-the-top and insufferable at times, but overall I find her wildly entertaining- but every book about her almost seems like a parallel universe where the previous book didn’t happen. There was only about a page’s worth of description/dialogue that even mentioned the events of A Field of Darkness, and pretty much the only character that returns is Madeline’s husband Dean. Having read Invisible Boy, I know we are again introduced to a whole new set of faces we’ve never heard of, and all the characters from The Crazy School vanish. While I definitely encourage introducing new players as a series progresses, I don’t like that all the old ones simply disappear without much mention. It also makes things a bit confusing, since we’re thrown into a totally new setting and plot without much information given. I didn’t even know until about halfway through the book why Madeline had even come to such a freaky institution and what stopped her from just leaving.

Also- the actual mystery in the book was not my favorite or as big of a part as the back of the book would suggest. I enjoyed it, but it doesn’t pick up steam until close to the end and is resolved relatively quickly. I more enjoyed the build-up, and the various strange goings-on of the school and Dr. Santegelo that happened before & during the main events of the story. And although I’m sure a lot of people didn’t enjoy it, I thought the last chapter was unbelievable and slightly silly but still immensely satisfying. I was glad she added that little epilogue in- I mean, it’s not like the rest of the book was all that believable either, so what’s one more wild event tossed in?
All that being said, these books are still a ridiculous amount of fun; there are plenty of twists and turns and I am rarely able to predict the exact place Cornelia Read is taking the story. Madeline is an interesting and compelling, if not always totally likable, narrator, and despite the flaws, I would read any book featuring her voice.

[Emily Kestrel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving this three stars because it was very readable: snappy, fast-paced prose, a snotty yet interesting protagonist, a somewhat decent story. Lately I've been feeling so sluggish and irritable, in my reading life and otherwise, that I've been DNFing books left and right, wondering if I'm truly picking awful books or if it's just me, that I'm just pleased to find something that was not a chore to finish. I am willing to give an extra star for that alone. Otherwise, this is probably what I would call a two-star read, because in many ways, this book seemed odd. Although it's hard to define "odd" when the setting is a school for behaviorally challenged kids that's being run in a cult-like manner by a bunch of whackadoodles, with mandatory therapy and over-sharing required for everyone including the teachers, and lots of really childish sniping.

One of the oddities of this novel is that it takes place in 1989 and yet it really seems to be about the 1970s. There are a few nods to the actual time period (the protagonist listens to the Sex Pistols and the Violent Femmes, for example), but mostly everyone is really hung up on stuff from the 1970s: Watergate, Nixon, Hare Krishnas in airports, EST seminars, Synanon, Jonestown, etc. As in, they talk about this stuff all the time, using it as a point of comparison for their daily lives, and it gave the whole book a weird vibe. I remember 1989 quite clearly--it was my freshman year of college--and people just did not say things like, "Oh, hare rama, they'll be shaving your head and sending you to the airport" in casual conversation to warn you about someone too controlling. They didn't say, "Oh, did you help plan Watergate?" just as a way of asking if you were up to trouble. This book is set in the late 1980s with politically aware characters no one once mentions Reagan or Oliver North or the Ayatollah or Gorbachev, because they're all still talking about Nixon??? Like I said, it was weird.

Despite this, I would have still been happy with this novel if the author hadn't relied on one of the cheapest tricks in the mystery genre at the end: having the bad guy step in with a gun at the final moment, explaining everything they did and why as they plan to go out with a final killing spree. There were a few other bones to pick, but this is fun fiction, so I'll let them slide. Overall: not a bad way to kill a few hours, if you enjoy mysteries. But don't expect too much.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

To start, I have to say that I didn't know anything about this book before I jumped in. It was in a book cart at school, and I was drawn in by the synopsis. I had no idea that this was part of a series, and that didn't have a huge impact on the story line, which I appreciated.

That being said, I had mixed feelings about "The Crazy School." It started off as an interesting book, especially as it got more into some of the things that were really happening inside the school. It kept me reading for the most part. There were characters I liked, among them Mooney, Fay, Lulu, and Markham. Although it wasn't the best book I've read, it was still fun to make predictions about what had happened.

It wasn't all good, though. The idea of this school is interesting in theory, but it wasn't believable when I actually read through it. There were some descriptions throughout the book that were awkward, especially from a first-person point of view. I also feel the need to mention the swearing. It doesn't bother me in context, and people at school swear all the time, so I'm desensitized. However, if you dislike swearing, you probably won't like some of the characters in this novel. Next, the ending seemed kind of out of the blue. I figured it out before the characters, mainly by process of elimination, but it still seemed random to me. That brings me to one final complaint. In my opinion, the characters were able to piece everything together too easily. Madeline went through quite an ordeal at one point, although I shan't say more because of spoilers, and it seemed unrealistic that she would still be able to remember enough details to form a theory of what happened.

In conclusion, I don't regret reading "The Crazy School." It was an interesting idea, and I'm not curious anymore. However, there were still some things that bothered me and took away from the story as a whole. The execution could have been better. Take what you will from my review and make your own decision about whether or not to read "The Crazy School."

[Roxanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been on my To Read shelf for years and I can't remember how it got there; either I picked it up at a used book sale or my mom gave it to me. There's a Borders sticker on the back cover but I was not involved with acquiring this book at that location, since I would not have paid actual money for it (the back cover copy is interesting but not as compelling as all that). I finally took it off the shelf to read the other day. It was a fine book and all, but my biggest problem with it is that nowhere on the book does it indicate that (1) it's a murder mystery, and (2) it's the second one in a series. I kept waiting for some big reveal about the person Madeline cared about that she had to kill out of self-defense back in Syracuse, but no, because it was in the first book. Also, I was totally thrown for a loop when the murder happened. Who looking at that big butterfly on the cover would think this was a murder mystery? I mean, I do like murder mysteries. I love Agatha Christie. But I like to read murder mysteries when I am in the mood for one, and I was not currently in the mood for one. I wanted a regular ol' novel, with violence levels much lower than those of a murder mystery novel. Overall, this book was fine, but I just couldn't get past my own issues.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Crazy School, while it didn't enthrall me quite as much as Cornelia Read's first book, A Field of Darkness, was still a worthy successor. Madeline Dare, the preppy-raised-by-hippies heroine of the first book, has torn her husband away from Syracuse and they are now living in the Berkshires. (It's the early 80s, I think). Husband is looking for work (it's a long story) and Madeline is teaching at "the crazy school" -- a residential school/psych treatment center for rich kids, run by a very dicey character. She stays because they need the money and she actually likes at least some of the kids. A supposed double suicide leads to all sorts of complications and Madeline has trouble knowing whom to trust. Once again, the climax of the book is both thrilling and heartbreaking.
Some people may object to the frequent use of rough language and a certain propensity for characters to take justice into their own hands. While I can understand their criticisms, I quite enjoyed this book. Read makes good use of current (for the setting) and past events in her plotting. I'll look forward to more of Madeline Dare's adventures or whatever else Cornelia Read wants to write.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent book in Cornelia Read's Madeline Dare series.

Madeline has escaped Syracuse for somewhere that's not a lot better - a private school for troubled teens in the Berkshires. She's teaching English and disturbed by the cultlike way the school is run - think EST with teenagers and you'll have a sense of the place. When two of her favorite students turn up dead, Madeline knows something bad is happening.

Read expands on Madeline's life with her husband, Dean, and on her life in this second novel. She introduces new characters, including Sitzman and Wiesner, two teens from the school that you can't help but love. More Sitzman and Wiesner, please!

Once again great plotting, fun story, cool atmospherics, and growth in the main character. This was very hard to put down and I can't wait for the next one.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked out this book on a whim and boy was that a good whim!

One of my few issues with it was that I didn't get to learn quite as much about Madeline Dare's background (which was often hinted at, though never fully-disclosed) as I would have liked, but upon reading reviews (didn't even look at goodreads until after I finished!), it appears that this is the SECOND book about Madeline. Since I really did enjoy this one, I will definitely be checking out the first.

Overall this was a moderately-paced (slower at the beginning -- wasn't sure I'd really get into it ... but toward the end, it was "LOOKOUT!" fast), well-crafted mystery. I'm already looking forward to reading it a second time.

[Christen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was excellent. Although is is part of a 3 book series (hopefully more coming!) it was able to be read as a stand alone book without being confused. Of course I has read the third book first, the second book second, and about to read the first book last and even though I think the other books may have given parts of the first book away, I still can't wait to read it. Cornelia Read's writing is edgy and quite frankly pretty much just like the way most people talk. I like that this book doesn't censor the characters language . . . who doesn't swear? Seriously! Besides the dialogue the story is great and the main character is the most unlucky person which make for good books.

[Viccy · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s craziness in Western Massachusetts in Cornelia Read’s entertaining second novel featuring ex-debutante Madeline Dare. She and her husband, Dean, have relocated to the Berkshires from Syracuse, New York and Madeline has taken a job teaching history at a cultish private school, Santangelo Academy, a dumping ground for troubled and dysfunctional adolescents. Having lived through the self-help decade of the seventies in southern California, Madeline is distrustful of the draconian regime at the Academy.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great book. It wasn't really what the back of the book led me to believe it was but still, really great. I ALSO didn't know that it is apparently part of a series. I want to go back and read the rest of Madeline's story, but it isn't needed to enjoy Crazy School at all. The kids are really what make the story. They have great personalities and Read gives her characters this funny, ironic, but cynical humor that I love. It's a very easy read. I picked it up on a whim and read it while taking a break from another book.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of holes in this one, more so than in Field of Darkness, but in the end, that didn't much matter because I just liked it so much.

The villains in this were definitely ridiculous, almost cartoonish. Santangelo is straight out of a Scooby Doo episode. But I adore Madeline Dare, and the ending of the book was outstanding.

My only real complaint, aside from some continuity issues, was that there was barely any mention of Ellis! Here's hoping she returns to Madeline's orbit in the third book.

[Lexi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic chiller/thriller featuring Read's intriguing heroine Madeline Dare. Accepting, out of desperate circumstances, a position as a teacher at a boarding school for troubled teens, Madeline finds herself accused of involvement in an incident that left two students dead. As she tries to find out what is really going on, the schools' authoritarian and cultlike feel become more and more disturbing, and it goes to a meserisingly dark place. Really excellent psychological horror stuff here.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Santangelo Academy is a boarding school for disturbed teens who have run out of conventional schooling options. But, as new teacher Madeline Dare discovers, some of the "therapeutic" treatments prescribed are downright sadistic. And when two kids are found dead, with Madeline framed as the killer, she finds out that something very wrong has been smoldering within the Crazy School.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Despite a slow first half, the book develops into a good mystery. The narrator is acerbic and funny, and the kids she teaches are highly entertaining. I missed some of the allusions to counter-culture literature and music, but I enjoyed reading the book overall.

[Gwen the Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a worthy follow-up to the phenominal debut A Field of Darkness. The action is more fast-paced and this is a quicker read, but the characters are just as well-drawn and the plot is suspenseful.

Recommended.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know why I read this -- I don't really like mysteries but I kind of liked it until somebody died and I guess I was supposed to care who did it. But I don't.