Gr 8 Up—Applying to one's dream school is a stressful process, especially if the school is Princeton, as it is for 16-year-old Lily Carter. But Lily's grandfather, an alumnus, has arranged a possible in for her: the Legacy Test. If she can pass the test by finding the Ivy Key, the exclusive Vineyard Club will guarantee her admission. The test turns out to be a means of introducing Lily to the "other" Princeton; a twin university in a parallel world inhabited by magical creatures. Tensions between the two worlds are strained, and the revelation of the Key soon brings the conflict to a head and forces Lily to confront some startling discoveries about herself, her mentally unbalanced mother, and the father who died when she was just a baby. While the story and the depiction of the magical world are fairly basic, Durst clearly enjoys spinning her supernatural ideas out of the architecture and lore of Princeton. Lily deals with the peculiarity of her situation in a believable manner, and her two potential love interests—a loner boy with orange-and-black hair and the handsome grandson of the Vineyard Club president—are charming. Fans of Lesley Livingston's "Wondrous Strange" series (HarperCollins) may find this similar melding of the mundane and the magical appealing.—Christi Esterle, Parker Library, CO
Magic and academia collide when Lily Carter sits for a top-secret Princeton University entrance exam. With help from a mysterious boy--and hindrance from many other people and creatures--she must save both the magical and the real Princeton from all-out war. Durst incorporates some imaginative fantasy elements into the book, which is more concerned with setting than characterization.
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