Down a Dark Hall (Lois Duncan)

Down a Dark Hall
A Lois Duncan Thrillers book
Lois Duncan
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, YA Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: When she first heard her mother and stepfather talking about the private Blackwood School for Girls in upstate New York, Kit Gordon thought it sounded exciting, especially if her best friend could go with her. But somehow only Kit got past the unusual entrance exams, and when she sets eyes on the restored mansion in the remote woods for the first time, she has only one thought: evil.
At first, she thinks it might just be her nerves. The place is old and spooky and the headmistress Madame Duret is peculiar, to say the least. But she can't shake the feeling that something's not right at Blackwood. There are only four students including her, such an odd mix that Kit can't imagine how they were all selected when her own brilliant best friend was rejected. The teaching staff is just one one professor, the headmistress's young adult son Jules, and Duret herself. Then the nightmares begin... and the students start displaying unusual talents, things they could never do before they arrived.
What is going on? What is Madame Duret doing to the children - and why? And can Kit escape before it's too late?

REVIEW: It's a classic setup by a familiar old-school author... but, like the Blackwood School for Girls, something felt a little odd about this story from the start - such as why an old-school author would bring up cell phones, social media, and the internet in a tale that feels like it's from the mid-twentieth century. Apparently, this is an "updated" version of the original, which was published in 1974. It probably would've been best just to leave it in its original time; it does a disservice to modern young readers to assume they're incapable of comprehending or enjoying what, to them, would be "historical fiction". As it is, the updates come across a little forced, like a parent overusing slang from a younger generation without quite getting the nuance and context right, muddling an otherwise reasonably decent (for its original time) and atmospheric thriller.
Kit doesn't want to be at Blackwood from the beginning, especially not without her best friend; her remarried mother and stepfather, however, are going on an extended European honeymoon and need somewhere for Kit to stay, and Blackwood promised a premium experience they couldn't deny. At first, she thinks maybe that's why she has such a visceral reaction the first time she lays eyes on the school, formerly the home of a local eccentric... but, this being a thriller, her gut instinct is correct, and from the moment she sets foot on the property Kit is in more danger than she can understand. Students and staff are familiar characters one would expect in this kind of tale, from the intimidating headmistress (who is clearly hiding sinister secrets) to the bubble-headed blonde classmate to the swoonworthy young music instructor (and Duret's son) Jules to the kindly cook who provides backstory as needed for the plot and more. Nobody is particularly deep, but nobody really needs to be in this kind of plot. It's more about the slowly unfolding horrors, the nightmares and unusual expressions of spontaneous "gifts" that catch all the children off guard and elicit different reactions from each, as Kit slowly pieces together just why the four students were selected and what Duret intends for them. There are some logic stretches, but overall the tale does a decent job immersing the reader in Kit's hellish experiences as the horrors unfold and her efforts to resist and escape (which she does at least try, to her credit) are thwarted. The climax could've been punchier, the wrap-up quick in a way the left me slightly disappointed, but overall the story delivers the boarding-school-with-a-dark-secret thriller that it promised... though I still question the publisher's insistence on the "updates", especially when the first thing the story does is deprive the children of access to nearly all of the modern technology it itself shoehorned into the story. Why bother introducing the tech at all, anyway?

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