Hex Hall Trilogy by Rachel Hawkins

This is a review of the entire trilogy, I did short separate reviews for Hex Hall and Demonglass if you are interested. The first part is spoiler free, but I do go into spoilers in the second part.
 

So my marathon of reading the Hex Hall Trilogy is complete, even though it took me longer than I had anticipated. The first two books in the trilogy, especially Hex Hall did a really good job of setting the scene for the rest of the trilogy. The lore and the magic was all really well explained and the world was built around how Sophie was learning at the same time as us readers.

It wasn’t until the second and third book that things started to get crazy and unpredictable. We learned new things about Sophie’s Mom and Dad and Archer was not who we thought he was. Once the true villain was identified as Lara, it became clear that Sophie and her group of friends would need to pool their resources and abilities to defeat the enemy (okay, I know that sounded ridiculous but I’m trying not to be spoilery).

As for the characters, Rachel Hawkins did a good job flushing out Sophie, Cal, Archer, and Jenna into likable characters. I really wanted to know what was going to happen to each of them. And especially after the fire in the second book, I couldn’t wait to find out everyone’s fate.

*Now for spoiler discussion, so do not read this if you haven’t finished the series. *

I was a huge fan of Cal throughout the trilogy. In my opinion he was the better guy for Sophie and I really feel like Hawkins took the easy way out by having him save everyone in the end. While it was clear for most of Spell Bound that Sophie was going to end up with Archer, killing off Cal didn’t seem like the right thing to do. And just once, I would have liked the main character to not end up with the stereotypical bad guy who was on the “other side”.

The ending of the Spell Bound also seemed rushed. Then entire final battle happens in the last 30ish pages. There was a lot of hype throughout Spell Bound about how they were going to stop the Casnoffs, and then it seemed to all work a little too well. But again I was more upset by the Cal thing then anything else.

The series does conclude in a way that shows what each character is going to do. I think it is pretty safe to say that Sophie’s Mom and Dad are going to get back together. And Archer and Sophie are going to be together as she eventually becomes the Head of the Council. Archer, Sophie, and Jenna are going to stay at the newly opened Hex Hall for another year. Finally, it is foreshadowed that Elodie and Cal are going to end up together since they are both ghosts (which again seems like the copout way of ending the love triangle).


Overall, this was a solid ✶ ✶ ✶ and a half stars trilogy that was both unpredictable and enjoyable. The series had both its strengths and its weaknesses, but overall it was enjoyable. And it definitely helped tie in with my current mood of reading a lot of demon books.