{"id":1835,"date":"2019-09-26T20:28:42","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T00:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/?p=1835"},"modified":"2019-09-13T12:52:28","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T16:52:28","slug":"book-review-peter-green-and-the-unliving-academy-this-book-is-full-of-dead-people-the-unliving-chronicles-1-by-angelina-allsop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/?p=1835","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Peter Green and the Unliving Academy: This Book is Full of Dead People (The Unliving Chronicles #1) by Angelina Allsop"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Peter Green and the Unliving Academy: This Book is Full of Dead People (The Unliving Chronicles<\/em>\u00a0#1)\u00a0<\/a>by\u00a0Angelina Allsop<\/a><\/p>\n

TCK Publishing,\u00a0<\/a>2018<\/p>\n

ISBN-13: 978-1631610646<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook<\/p>\n

Fourteen year old Peter Green wakes up on the floor of a hotel lobby wearing only pajamas and a silk tie, and discovers he is dead, has no memories of his life, and is stuck in Purgatory without them until he is 18, or family claims him. After navigating the bueracracy of Purgatory (and of course Purgatory has bueracracy) he is sent to a boarding school for other \u201corphans\u201d or unclaimed children. Scoot, an action-oriented redhead who carries her head under her arm, and Charlie, a flamboyant dresser who can\u2019t keep a secret, orient him to the school and get him to his first classes. Peter soon learns that the school isn\u2019t just for the unliving\u2013 it\u2019s also the home of monsters, most of whom are part of the staff. He quickly gets on the wrong side of the school bully, Shelly Grant, causing a number of mishaps, and is then invited to join BASA, a special club that trains students in the skills they need to become spies and assassins in the \u201ccommunity\u201d.\u00a0 As he adapts to school and throws himself into his training for BASA, he can\u2019t let go of a feeling that he needs to help his family, and with the help of his friends, steals the file containing his memories.<\/p>\n

The world building in this is nicely done, and I liked Peter\u2019s friends\u2013 especially Charlie\u2013 and some of the other characters Allsop got into in depth, such as Katerina the witch. As a magical boarding school book, it\u2019s pretty well done, and while there are some similarities to Harry Potter, it\u2019s mostly not noticeable (the werewolf professor, the giant snake roaming the hallways, the special Halloween visit to town). Allsop also manages to make what could be a pretty grim and scary topic genuinely entertaining and even humorous at times . It\u2019s Peter himself whose character and story are thin. Perhaps some of this is because he doesn\u2019t have memories (and thus not much of a personality) for much of the book, but while individual adventures and incidents get exciting, the suspense of whether he\u2019ll be able to get back to his family is just not there, until suddenly, it\u2019s a time sensitive emergency.\u00a0 I hoped that we\u2019d see more of the school in a future book, as this appears to be the first in a series, but the ending of the book makes that unlikely.<\/p>\n

Despite Peter\u2019s age being set at 14, the book feels like it\u2019s targeted at middle-grade readers rather than teenagers. Kids looking for a \u201cmagical boarding school book\u201d should enjoy this one, and hopefully, now that Peter has his memories back, there will be further character development to make him more interesting in the next book. Recommended.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Green and the Unliving Academy: This Book is Full of Dead People (The Unliving Chronicles\u00a0#1)\u00a0by\u00a0Angelina Allsop TCK Publishing,\u00a02018 ISBN-13: 978-1631610646 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook Fourteen year old Peter Green wakes up on the floor of a hotel lobby wearing only pajamas and a silk tie, and discovers he is dead, has no memories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,123,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-ghosts","category-ya-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Eu9f-tB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1836,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1835\/revisions\/1836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}