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Title details for The Crazy School by Hillary Huber - Available

The Crazy School

#2 in series

by Hillary Huber
Cornelia Read
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

Madeline Dare has traded in the drudgery of living in backwoods Syracuse, New York, to work as a teacher at Santangelo Academy, a boarding school for emotionally disturbed teenagers in the Berkshires. Behind the ornate gates of the academy, she finds a disturbing realm where students and teachers must follow the dean’s bizarre therapies. From her first day, Madeline doubts Dr. Santangelo’s credibility, and she’s not afraid to voice her concerns. But she quickly discovers that many of her colleagues are devout followers of the dean. When a chilling event confirms Madeline’s suspicions, she feels trapped within a school full of lunatics. Shut off from the outside world, Maddie forms an unlikely alliance with a small group of rebellious students whose constant resistance to authority may be her only salvation.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Madeline Dare

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 1, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481566100
      • File size: 245308 KB
      • Duration: 08:31:03

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Author Cornelia Read tells this story of teacher Madeline Dare, who unearths a conspiracy among her fellow teachers at a school for troubled youth. It's a dark account of an authoritarian headmaster and the murder of a young couple by poison. Madeline herself is accused of the crime, a development that forces her to join forces with the school's most rebellious students to identify the real perpetrators. Hillary Huber carries out the reading at a tortoise pace. While her delivery is clear, it sprawls on and on, emphasizing every word and pulling the energy out of what could have been a captivating story. The result is a poor listening experience. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 15, 2007
      At the start of Edgar-finalist Read’s gutsy second Madeline Dare novel (after 2006’s A Field of Darkness
      ), Dare, a 26-year-old former debutante, takes a job in the fall of 1989 as a history teacher at Santangelo Academy, an unorthodox “therapeutic boarding school” in western Massachusetts dominated by its authoritarian cape-wearing headmaster, David Santangelo. When a student, Mooney LeChance, reveals that his girlfriend, Fay Perry, is pregnant, Dare keeps Mooney’s secret while the couple is confined to “the Farm,” a punishment dorm in the woods. The book’s first half focuses on character—the woefully misguided souls who teach at Santangelo, the students in all their dysfunctional glory—but the action picks up when Mooney and Fay die from drinking poisoned punch after a birthday party at the Farm, and Dare is arrested for her role in preparing the fatal beverage. While some characters, like the social-climbing parents who drop in between vacations, verge on stereotype, Read graphically depicts the depressing underside of a supposedly elite private school.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 31, 2008
      Ex-California rich girl Madeline Dare returns for a second mystery (after Field of Darkness
      ), set in 1989 at a school for disturbed adolescents in the Berkshires, where the strictures and therapy requirements for the staff are only slightly less stringent than those for the students. After a pair of teenage lovers are poisoned, new teacher Madeline uncovers several dark (and fairly unsurprising) secrets about the school as she searches for the killer. The mystery's murderer and motives soon become obvious, as do the red herrings. It's the unflinching drama and sharply drawn characters that make this book, and both are ably realized by Hilary Huber, who is adept at both male and female voices and a variety of accents. She perfectly evokes Madeline with a mix of tart cynicism and warm compassion. Aside from the vaguely irritating musical strings inserted between chapters, this is fine and involving to listen to. Simultaneous release with the Grand Central hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 15
      , 2007).

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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