I loved the Gothic elements of this story and, of course, the boarding school setting. It was perfectly eerie and impossibly attractive all at the same time--perfect for the genre. Gothic novels MUST have a thorough sense of place. It's part of the genre description. Acosta did a fantastic job of creating the classic Gothic setting without taking us out of the present day. I loved this book and I'm eager to try Acosta's adult novels--though I understand they're lighter in tone. One of the MCs from her adult books makes a cameo in Dark Companions and I'm definitely intrigued. 
 Other notes: While the main character, Jane, is often frustrating, I did like her. More often, I felt for her predicament. The situation she gets herself into is a direct result of her upbringing--of the failures of the foster care system. She's too broken to see the way that she's being manipulated and too powerless to change things. 
 Mary Violet, one of the friends she makes at her new school (Birch Grove Academy) is divine. We should all have a Mary Violet in our lives. Lucky is a total ass and Jack, while swoon-worthy, also a blind idiot. His parents...if he truly loved Jane, he'd never speak to them again. Their treatment and manipulation of her is unspeakable. One of the real accomplishments of this novel is that I didn't feel ambivalent about ANY of the characters. I couldn't--they're THAT well-defined.