Van Helsing Academyby Stacey O’Neale (YA Supernatural Rehab Book 1)

Published:28 Apr 2020

Publisher:Phoenix Reign Publishing

Length: 248 pages

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Blurb:Welcome to the Van Helsing Academy: a rehabilitation center for vampires, shifters, and witches who don’t like to follow the rules.

Mina can’t remember anything about the night she was attacked. All she knows is what she’s been told: she got separated from her team during a mission and turned up two months later covered in cuts and bruises alongside two dead vampires.

After being blamed for their deaths, she is sentenced to three years at the supernatural rehabilitation center, the Van Helsing Academy.

As Mina searches for answers, lies are slowly unraveled and alliances forged. Soon she will uncover a secret plot that threatens to destroy her family legacy and ignite a war between the supernatural factions.

My Review:

This is the perfect read for fans of the vampire academy. This book has a wider range of supernaturals and while it is a school it’s also a juvenile detention centre for supes and reapers who have seriously harmed or killed others.

The students don’t appear to fit with the juvenile delinquent mould and I’m sure this will be further explored in the series but I would have liked a bit more detail around the discrepancy between what the reapers are supposed to do and how they are actually behaving.

Boy did that ending give me whiplash. Everything happens in the last few chapters of the book and it all became an rushed jumble. I had to remind myself that Mina is a teenager and while she likes to think she’s an adult she makes foolish mistakes and even has a wobbler when she is overwhelmed by guilt. It was frustrating to read but in the context of teenage behavior it is understandable.

There was some issues that I highlighted that impacted my rating but overall I loved the premise and I hope the next in the series is more like I hoped.

I received an arc of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. *Blurb and cover image via Goodreads.