I’m very glad this book exists. It is adorable. It takes place in Little Salem, a magical place filled with monsters, faeries, and supernatural beings of all kinds. Bunny is a cute witch with a badass, butch, biker, vampire girlfriend, Dean. Their relationship is really sweet, and Dean is the quintessential swoonworthy bad boy butch. And they go to queer youth meetings with zombies, mummies, demons, and lots more people! Oh, and they attend Haunt High, where they learn about potions, magic, and other supernatural elements.
Unfortunately, Bunny’s problem is that she’s always had a thing for faerie girls, who are unattainable–closer to gods than mere mortals. When Fairer Than, a gorgeous faerie girl, takes a liking to Bunny, her relationship with Dean is in danger. But Fairer Than isn’t like other faeries (or, after all, she wouldn’t be slumming with witches). What’s her motivation?
I also appreciated that although Bunny and Fairer Than appear to be white, Dean is asian (or, at least, her birth name is “Yu Ying”) and Bunny’s best friend Blanchet is black. Unfortunately, Dean’s father kind of looks like a caricature of an asian man, and Blanchet is a “voodoo princess”. So I’m not sure how to think about Charm School’s depiction of race. Still, I’m used to Fantasy books using supernatural creatures as stand ins for minorities and not including any people of color at all, so I’m guess my bar is pretty low.
Just having a supernatural world with a biker butch vampire and a cute lesbian witch was really fun for me. It sort of reminds me of Halloweentown, if that was a lesbian teen cartoon. I would love to read the next book if I can get my hands on it, and I think this would make a great, fun Halloween read.
