On a single night, five children suddenly vanish from their homes in Paris, Glasgow, Rome, and London. Years later, five enigmatic teenagers make an impressive entrance at an exclusive New York holiday party with their strange but beautiful governess, Madame Vileroy. Rumor and intrigue follow the Faust children to the elite Manhattan Marlowe School, where their very presence brings unexplainable misfortune.
Using “gifts” given to them by Madame Vileroy, these mysterious teenagers rise to suspicious heights at Marlowe. Though at first their abilities seem almost childlike in their simplicity, they soon learn that their newfound talents for cheating, stealing, hiding, and lying are far more potent than they had ever imagined — and far more addictive.
Ignoring the side effects of pursuing their individual obsessions, bargaining with the very devil in their midst as they claw their way to the top, these five ambitious teens draw ever nearer to their goals . . . until two of them uncover a secret even more shocking than their own most unforgivable sins. Dialing up the ancient dilemma of indulgence versus redemption, this modern-day retelling of the Faustian bargain story, set in twenty-first-century Manhattan, provides a look into the cutthroat world of high-school competition that is both bitingly funny and scorchingly wicked.
This book was weird. Seriously, that's one of the only ways I can think to describe it. Weird. The plot, the characters, the antagonist, the ending, even the time it is set in (it feels like it is a period novel, but it is set in the twenty-first century). Weird.
I'll admit, I don't like the cover. At all. The reason I even looked at this book was because of the name, and then once I read it, the inside flap. And I'm glad I did pick it up, because it was and entirely unique read.
The main characters are five teenagers. I really did not like any of them.. Belle was vain, Bice was unrelatable, Valetin was cruel, Christian was again, unrelatable, and Victoria was pure, pure, evil. But, somehow, the undeveloped, unlikable characters suited the book. The five teens live with their "governess", Madame Vileroy. There is definitely a secret surrounding her, and it isn't a good one!
I don't know how to describe this book without spoilers, but I'll do my best. It was weird, as I mentioned before, but it was also really good. I didn't want to put t down, and I didn't know how it was going to end until, well, the ending!
As the book said, the ending wasn't a fairy-tale ending. But maybe it was a fairy-tale beginning.
I give this book a 4/5 and would recommend it to lovers of mystery, scary stories, fantasy, and adventure.
Market: YA
Sensuality: Mild/Moderate
Language: Moderate
Violence: Mild
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