The Academy Series by Aubrey Coletti Review

Title: Altered
Author: Aubrey Coletti
Publisher: Escape Artist Press
Pages: 272
Genre: YA Thriller/Sci-Fi
Format: Paperback/Kindle

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When Toni, Joseph and Charlie arrive at their new boarding school, they are glad to leave their families — and respective problems — behind. Isolated as boarders, they meet a handsome senior with a personality like iced snake's blood, teachers with a penchant for physical punishment, and four other outcasts who reveal that their being brought to the Academy wasn't random at all. When the arrivals discover that their new school is engaged in "behavior modification" through electric shocks, isolation, restraints, and an ever-evolving set of methods to "fix" them, they declare war on their Academy. During their campaign of sabotage, they fight, hate, scorn, love, and begin to uncover the reasons why they were brought to the school. But as their war against the school escalates beyond their control, will they become the very things the Academy believes they are: dangerous, delinquent — and mad?

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Book Excerpt:

Charlie Persan looked out the bathroom window. She noted the locks and the metal gate. The school itself clearly reinforced the message that this was a four year sentence with no chance of parole.

You did agree to this remember. It’s not as if Mommy and Daddy forced you to go to boarding school. Charlie sighed.

‘Interesting’ was the word most often used to describe Charlie. Short with dark, damp-looking hair that she let run wild to her shoulders, Charlie had light skin, a small nose, and cracked lips. The only feature she liked was her dark eyes, accentuated by thick dark brows. They were the one pretty thing on her plump face.

She heard voices and froze. Slowly, she turned to the window. It was opened just enough that a breeze carried the sounds of voices to her.

“You are a saddest, Lieutenant.”

“I am a what now?”

“You know! One of those people who gets turned on by pain.” “Yo, I’m straight thanks.”

“No, it’s a word.”

“Uh — you mean a sadist, sweetie?”

“You know what, Lieutenant!”

Lieutenant laughed, and Charlie heard a light slap.

“Hey, stop playin’, stop playin’, damn,” she heard Lieutenant say. “You

punch me, I punch you see —”

“Ow, L!” the male student protested. He had a slight lisp. “You can’t kid

around like that! Your arms are rock hard. They’re lethal weapons.” “Melvin you gotta learn to —” Lieutenant stopped. “Here he is.”

“You ready to do this thing?” said a new male voice, deeper and raspier. “We’d better do it quick if we don’t want to get caught,” said Melvin. “Hey, maybe we’d get expelled,” said Lieutenant. “That’s a nice thought, ain’t it Anton?”

“More likely we’d get sent to jail,” Anton replied. “And jail they will

never take me to. I’m too damn pretty. You know what they do to pretty people in jail.”

“Can we hurry up and get this over with?” Melvin said nervously. “I don’t know why we chose to do this in broad daylight.”

“Cause it’s the one time they’d never expect,” Anton said as if repeating something for the second or third time. “We cut the wires and get back in the damn bathroom —”

“Then let’s do it!” Melvin whispered fiercely.

“A’ight,” Lieutenant said. “Let’s go. One ... two ... three.”

Charlie shivered as the lights in the bathroom buzzed fiercely, and then went out. She wondered if the voices heard her scream.

Title: Shattered
Author: Aubrey Coletti
Publisher: Escape Artist Press
Pages: 333
Genre: YA Thriller/Sci-Fi
Format: Paperback/Kindle

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School’s in session at J. Alter Academy, and for Toni, Joseph, Ann, Charlie, and their boarder friends, that means they are still at the mercy of its draconian ways. While suffering the harsh consequences of their attempted escape, the seven teens must also contend with the formidable Headmistress and her taste for human experimentation — with the boarders as her favorite subjects. The seven friends play a delicate, dangerous game as they seek to discover the secrets behind their school and their own unique abilities. Yet as they move closer to uncovering the truth, will one of them be forced to pay the ultimate price?

Book Excerpt:

Toni White tapped her pencil softly on her notebook, her hazel-green eyes blinking heavily as she took down mindless notes. She played with one of her curls as she tried to look attentive. If her history teacher, Mr. Alderman, glanced at most of the other students and decided they weren’t paying attention, they would get a sharp comment and most likely detention. If he decided Toni was not paying attention, she would be far more severely punished.

It would just be completely shocking. Totally electrifying. I’d just sizzle with excitement. God it’s good I find myself funny.

Toni resisted the urge to touch the wires or the connected bits of cool metal, irritating against her skin. It would be so easy to just pull off the wires, so easy to free herself.

And then get shocked into oblivion for doing it, Toni thought wryly. She could so easily rip the skin-shock device from her skin.

I could also call Mr. Alderman a pathetic, lonely, xenophobic old zombie again. Because those four rounds of ‘therapy’ down in Discipline were just so much fun.

Toni bit her lip and sat up straighter in her chair as Mr. Alder- man scanned the class. At J. Alter Academy she couldn’t risk even minor infractions. The skin-shock device, which consisted of a small backpack linked to innumerable wires and round metal disks placed all over her bare skin, marked her out as one of the high school’s problem boarders. Toni was a serious threat to herself and others, according to her parents, her school, and her records. Someone who justified the use of extensive, aversive therapy. Someone who deserved to be controlled.

Except they haven’t, thought Toni, suppressing a defiant little grin. I chose to be here. I chose to stay, when I could have run. And I’m choosing to keep my bad, bad, nasty juvenile behavior in check for my own reasons.

Toni waited until Mr. Alderman’s gaze was focused on a student asking a question, and then she glanced over into the next row of desks. The blonde who occupied the seat near the aisle shifted. Toni caught a glimpse of her sharply carved face, somewhat blank without the dramatic lip gloss the girl usually wore. Ann Cost tossed her ponytail and sat up primly when Mr. Alderman seemed inclined to look her way, the picture of a perfect student. Toni kept another vicious grin from making its way to her face, a skill she had developed over the past months since The Incident.

Ann can look like a regular church angel when she puts her mind to it, Toni thought, knowing that when her blonde friend did so, it meant her mind was on things of a less than angelic nature.

“So I expect your five page paper by the end of this week, no extensions, no exceptions,” Mr. Alderman said, dismissing the class with his usual, oddly contented grin. Toni took as deep a breath as she could manage without being obvious. This next action would have to be careful, delicate, so subtle that none of the multiple cameras which monitored J. Alter Academy could detect it. Toni rose as nonchalantly as she knew how, mov- ing with what she hoped was a careless air across the room to conveniently rub against Ann as they moved towards the door.

The brush pass was light, brief. One minute she was side-by- side with Ann, the next the other girl had exited through the door. If Toni hadn’t felt into her jacket pocket for the tiny pill, she probably wouldn’t have registered its presence. In two, quick, innocuous seconds, both girls had practiced their greatest act of defiance since The Incident.

“Toni.”

Toni’s head shot up, her heart racing so fast it ached in her chest, her stomach plummeting with fear. If she were caught now, the entire plan was ended before it was begun — the plan they had all spent months slowly crafting through glances and passed notes, any form of communication small enough to slip past the constant surveillance under which they all lived.

But it wasn’t a teacher who was staring at Toni now. The big, liquid brown eyes set in a small, pale face which blinked up at Toni were those of a friend. This girl’s hair was matted and twisted; unhealthily skinny, all she wore was an oversized hospital gown.

Charlie. The name formed in Toni’s mind, but before she could form and speak the words another student moved between them, and Charlie was gone.

“Are you alright, Ms. White?”

Toni’s body seized up when she felt the sickening pressure

of Mr. Alderman’s hand on her shoulder.

“No, nothing Mr. Alderman,” Toni said, through gritted teeth.

“I’m fine. Just . . . dizzy for a second.”

“Well, then I suggest you hurry up. You don’t want to be late

for your next class,” the history teacher admonished.

Toni nodded, and began moving out the door, propelled back

into action by the churning disgust in her stomach.

Great, so now I’m hallucinating too, she considered wryly. Not really a fucking surprise. If nothing else, we’re all definitely proof that crazy is catching.

 About the Author

Aubrey Coletti is a singer-songwriter, dancer, and the author of Altered and Shattered, Books One and Two in The Academy Series. She can be found on her website http://aubreycoletti.com.

Connect and socialize with Aubrey on Twitter or Facebook.

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My Review:

I get freaked out by behavior modification. Shock therapy is not fun. As I read through this book and the characters were "treated", I felt for them, and wanted them to escape. This book had friends that were all in the same bad situation, and eventually they will have to decide on betraying each other, or more treatments. It was interesting to see what they decided and why. There are unanswered questions at the end, however the second book is already out so you can read them together. What I most enjoyed was that these were teenagers going through stuff that most adults never could. I am giving this book a 4/5. I was given a copy to review, however all opinions are my own.