Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

  On her 12th birthday Sophie Mercer discovered that the father she has never met is a warlock and that she is a witch.  Three years later she is sentenced Hecate ("Hex") Hall, a reform school for prodigium who have done something to risk revealing their nature to humans.  A love spell gone very wrong is the mistake that lands Sophie at Hex Hall.  On the upside, for the first time Sophie meets other kids like herself.  There are witches, fairies, shifters, werewolves (here shifters can become an actual animal while werewolves are in a constant half-human/half-wolf state), vampires, ghosts and even a demon.  At regular school, Sophie was an outcast.  At Hex Hall, while not exactly popular, at least there is the potential of fitting in.

Hex Hall kept popping up in my recommendations list on Goodreads, probably because I read a lot of young adult and paranormal/ urban fantasy/ supernatural books.  That it is set in a boarding school was an added bonus.  Boarding schools always sound like so much fun, but then I never attended one, so that's probably why they interest me.  Unfortunately this only mildly interested me.  The writing and plot are extremely simplistic.  There isn't much in the way of character development.  Sophie is sarcastic.  Sadly, her sarcasm is less in the way of witty and more in the form of bratty teenager with a chip on her shoulder. 

Hex Hall is the first in a series.  It is classified as a young adult but I would almost classify it as juvenile or at least at the younger end of the YA spectrum.   Perhaps the story gets stronger over the series but I won't be finding out anytime soon.