REVIEW: DICKENSEN ACADEMY – CHRISTINE GRABOWSKI

Dickensen Academy Book Cover Dickensen Academy
Christine Grabowski
Coming of Age, New Adult, Romance, College
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
September 12, 2018
348

Dickensen Academy isn’t a typical boarding school. The faculty is hiding an unbelievable secret within their fine arts program. When Autumn Mattison receives an invitation to attend the high school, she yearns to escape her overbearing father yet remains reluctant to leave her mother and brother. Her doubts fade away when a vivid dream convinces her she belongs there. Away from home, Autumn discovers a unique school environment that awakens her creative potential, and her new friends become like a second family. However, as she uncovers more about the dark side of the school and struggles with its curriculum, she questions whether Dickensen Academy is truly where she belongs. When tragedy strikes, Autumn must learn to believe in her own power and stand up to her greatest fear or risk having her memories destroyed to protect the school’s secrets. Caught between secrets and dreams, can she find her true self?

Available at Amazon.

Reviewed by Linda Tonis

Member of the Paranormal Romance Review Team

Autumn Mattison has been invited to attend the Dickensen Academy and it is the Dickensen Foundation that will be paying for this exclusive boarding school. She is entering into her freshman year of high school and for the first time she will be away from home, leaving her mother her brother Josh and her father. She is finally going to get away from her father’s constant lack of encouragment but she will miss her home in Seattle and all her friends she is leaving behind.

When she arrives at the school she is surprised to realize that everything she sees looks familiar as if she has been here before but she chalks it up to having seen everything in the school brochures. It doesn’t take long before she realizes that there is something definitely different about Dickensen, no cell service, internet monitored, no visitors and she can’t leave the campus except for vacation.

Fortunately for Autumn she becomes best friends with her roommate and with Ben the boy she met at the testing center and the boy she has had dreams about. With Ben at her side they explore the school grounds to find out the secret behind the school but they didn’t have to because the purpose of the school and why they were chosen is explained shortly after they arrived.

Autumn has to explore her feelings about the school and Ben and revealing the school’s secrets could result in punishment so she can never reveal anything to her own parents. Unsure of whether she wishes to continue at Dickensen a tragedy at home changes everything for her. She leaves the school to be with her family and realizes that she misses Dickensen and wishes to return but her parents are now not sure if they want her away from home.

This is a story every young adult can relate to, romance, leaving home for the first time and having to make adult decisions at a young age. I will not reveal the secret of Dickensen Academy but it is a book I recommend to all ages.

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