I was lounging around on a friday and I had no books to read (excepting Gifts which was boring as death) and so I peek into my sister's room and she has Hex Hall sitting on her bed among the second and the third. And it's an eye-popping cover (though I've been warned to stay away with books with girls and flowers on the cover), so I borrowed it and read it. The first chapter I was thinking "Hey, this is really cool, finally some hard-core fantasy." I was tired of all those auto-biographies I was forced to read in English. But then as the book progressed I thought "This is strangely familiar..." And then I caught it. It's Harry Potter, but without the awesomeness of Harry Potter. Don't get me wrong, it's good. It really is. I enjoyed reading it (though when she got the school and started "exploring" I was like "And I care why...?"), but the similarities were almost to the point of copycat. 
 Similarities to Harry Potter: 
 1. School for magical people secluded from the rest of the world. 
 2. Mention of other magical schools. 
 3. Groundkeeper (though he looked nothing like Hagrid) 
 4. Spirits in the school that 'haunt' it. 
 5. She is related to the antagonist. 
 6. A trio of girls that harass her ( Malfoy, Crab, and Goyle) 
 Things I liked: 
 Alice was actually a good character. I liked how that played a role. 
 The trio of girls was an interesting added affect. 
 The main character knew how to use sarcasm. 
 The Vampire prejudice was done somewhat well. 
 Great surprise ending. 
 I liked how they waited until the end to fall in love. 
 I like how Jenna was a real person. 
 Things I didn't like: 
 From the moment we met Archer I knew he was the supposed love interest, because it happened in a sort of cliche way. She was about to be attacked, (she sais a cheesy line (Bad dog!) at a werewolf which becomes a joke of theirs of which I cringed every time), he saves her. She doesn't know who her savior is until she hears a snarky sarcastic voice telling her she's a bad witch. She glances over to see a muscular, attractive boy leaning casually against a tree (really, leaning??). She get's mad at him for calling her bad witch even though she clearly didn't try to save herself from said attacking werewolf. They are now 'enemies'. So obvious they were going to fall in love, though I did not expect the surprise ending. Kudos there. 
 Hoe easily the Headmistress admitted she was right. 
 How the main character was never wrong... 
 How Jenna was gay for no reason. I felt that there should've been a reason a purpose for her to be gay, but there wasn't. 
 Not enough of the other species or whatever you call them. 
 But I really do recommend it.