Rating: 
Summary: Sort of like Harry Potter meets Anne of Green Gables...
Review: A Hogwarts-type school at the turn of the century! What an intruiging idea!Though this book starts out a little campy, with the main character gathering eggs on a small farm, and continues with some very pegan-like philosophy about magic, I found myself thoroughly enjoying "A School for Sorcery." Sabin's style is simple and lyrical, and her story has just enough unusual aspects to carry the reader through untill you begin to realize that the seemingly predictable plot is not what it seems! I finished this book in two days. It was excellant.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Harry potter, but not trying to be....
Review: I did enjoy this book although I was a little dissapointed buy the lack of depth in the plot. However I would like to point out tho any one who thinks this book is copying Harry Potter, its not. This book was published in 1992. Years befor harry potter was even written.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Page Turning Read!
Review: I met Ms. Sabin at a signing and couldn't resist buying this book. I also found that I couldn't put it down once I started reading it. A wonderful tale, one that in the beginning sent me back in time, of tales I recalled as a young girl, from Cinderella to Dirty Dancing. What a great coming of age story with bewitching twists. Danger, power, mirror reflections, teen-love, and some pretty scary stuff as well. A truly enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Page Turning Read!
Review: I met Ms. Sabin at a signing and couldn't resist buying this book. I also found that I couldn't put it down once I started reading it. A wonderful tale, one that in the beginning sent me back in time, of tales I recalled as a young girl, from Cinderella to Dirty Dancing. What a great coming of age story with bewitching twists. Danger, power, mirror reflections, teen-love, and some pretty scary stuff as well. A truly enjoyable read.
Rating: 
Summary: Teaches nothing new
Review: In a wave of reprints and new books about wizards-in-training, E. Rose Sabin's "School For Sorcery" is nothing to write home about. With moderately endearing characters and a somewhat underexploited storyline, it fails to live up to its potential. It's not a bad book, it's just not a particularly good book. Tria Tesserell has always had magical gifts, but living in a small village with a strict father and cowed mother has never given her room to exercise those gifts. So she is thrilled to go to the Lesley Simonton School for the Magically Gifted. Until she arrives, that is -- there are few students, grimy buildings, tiny rooms and stern teachers. Tria breaks an important rule (folding time) within a few hours of arriving, and her roommate is Lina, a charmingly nasty panther-girl who proceeds to make life difficult -- and not just for Tria. But the two girls have to put their differences aside on the night of a formal dance. There, a pair of male students, Oryon and Kress, bring in beautiful masked women -- who reveal themselves to be demonic Dire Women. The Dire Women snatch up a pair of young boys and escape the school. The Headmistress is unable to stop Oryon or bring back the boys -- and it falls to Tria and her pals to bring them back. "School For Sorcery" has an adequate plot, adequate writing, adequate characters, and adequate dialogue. The key word there is "adequate." has a lot of the standard boarding-school characters and problems. As a result, it ends up retreading a lot of the same territory as the Harry Potter and "College of Magics" books. The universe that Sabin writes is also rather undefined. Is this fictional world an alternate universe or a separate fantasy world? It's never entirely clear. The writing is fairly standard, ranging from extremely descriptive to painfully stark, and it lacks the lushness of Emily Drake's writing, or the entertaining zip of Diana Wynne-Jones'. There seems to be a bit of an anti-male streak, as virtually all the men are ineffectual, bigoted or evil. The dialogue is a bit of a problem; it's often more than a little stilted (hasn't anyone in this book ever heard of contractions?) and this becomes especially distracting during dramatic moments. And some readers may not be keen on the heroines summoning a demonic Dire Woman in a rather sinister ritual that involves animal sacrifice and a pentagram. Tria herself is a fairly ordinary heroine. There is nothing to really set her apart or make her special, except for her rather vaguely-defined powers. Nubba will gain more sympathy from readers, between her hysterical fits and teasing from her classmates. Other girls such as Kathyn and Taner don't reaklly display any individual characteristics aside from "angry sister" and "tough warrior-woman"; they don't detract from the plot, but they don't add to it either. Oryon at first seems like a promising villain, but he quickly descends into blatant mustache-twirling. If you're an older Harry Potter fan waiting for the next book, you won't find what you crave in this rather lackluster first novel. It has all the trappings of a ripping good fantasy, but never rises high enough to be better than "okay."
Rating:
Summary: An entertaing new fantasy novel
Review: It seems that ever since JK Rowling's fantastic Harry Potter series hit the shelves, we have received book after book of child and teen fantasy novels. It seems that everyone is trying to out-Potter each other. In some cases these "novels" can turn out to be embarrassingly bad. Fortunately this is not the case. A School for Sorcery by E. Rose Sabin is a thrilling novel about what happened if Harry Potter was female, a few years older, and in a completely different world. Tria Tesserell is a 16-year-old farmer's daughter who has always known that she had had some magic gifts. Unfortunately, because of her close minded father, she has been forced to keep her powers hidden. But when she gets accepted to the Lesley Simonton School for the Magically Gifted she is thrilled. She won't have to keep her powers hidden any longer. But her enthusiasm is diminished when she actually gets to the campus. The buildings are crumbling, the hallway seems to be covered in a thick layer of dust and grime, and the food is old and stale. Tria gets in trouble right away when one of her powers she never knew she possessed works without her even knowing it. To top it off Tria's new roommate is a witch in more ways than one. Tria feels as if she can never learn to love this school. And just when she start's getting used to it and things start looking up a darker more sinister evil takes into play. Oryon, a second year student, has summoned an evil source that has kidnapped two of Tria's fellow students and friends. It looks like Tria is the only one that can save them, but she doesn't even know how. I was unsure whether to give this book 4 stars of 5. There were many good qualities. The author manages to take a familiar scene (a magic school) and take it in a completely different direction. The characters are amusing and sometimes scary. And the emphasis in this book is more on ethical magic than breaking the rules for the greater good (like in Harry Potter). Still there are a few plot holes. Because there are so many characters many of them get introduced and seem like they will become large parts in the books. Instead they merely vanish about halfway through the book. But beyond that this book is great. I hope to see more works of fantasy from E. Rose Sabin, maybe in this world. I recommend it to fans of JK Rowling and Diane Wynne Jones.
Rating:
Summary: witches, after all, are feminine
Review: The strong point of this tale is that it is about a teen-aged GIRL. When my Kipton series of mysteries was published, featuring a teen-aged girl and her teddy bear on Mars, my daughter said she wished they'd been available when she was a girl, because for decently written teen-aged adventures she had to rely on the Hardy Boys and other books featuring male heroes. Sabin, a member of my writers' club, has done young feminine readers a favour.
Rating:
Summary: witches, after all, are feminine
Review: The strong point of this tale is that it is about a teen-aged GIRL. When my Kipton series of mysteries was published, featuring a teen-aged girl and her teddy bear on Mars, my daughter said she wished they'd been available when she was a girl, because for decently written teen-aged adventures she had to rely on the Hardy Boys and other books featuring male heroes. Sabin, a member of my writers' club, has done young feminine readers a favour.
Rating:
Summary: This School gets a "C" in my book
Review: The title is quick to draw eager Harry Potter fans to its place on a bookshelf, and the whimsical cover may appear quirky and magical, but for fans of other "schools of sorcery", this novel may be disapointing. A School for Sorcery focuses on an alternate universe based on late 19th century Europe where magic is common. Sabin's characters are original enough, but somewhat undefined; their pasts, though hinted at, are never discussed. Going in depth into an exciting magical world, what Rowling did so well with Harry Potter, Sabin fails to do with School; the reader is left completely in the dark mysterious land. It begins as Tria and her mother secretly send Tria to Simonton School for the Magically Gifted, for Tria's rare magic to be trained. Her father scorns her gift, and Tria's mother is forced to spend all her savings to pay for tuition. When Tria arrives, the school appears to be in disrepair; everything is dusty and old, and much different than the broshure. The food is bad, her vain roommate randomly turns into a panther, and mysterious students Oryan and Kress have a deadly scheme. Now she must save her love Wilce from the clutches of the Dire Women within a year or Oryan will take over the school and all the students will suffer. This book teaches an artful lesson about looking beyond the obvious and what's on the inside. Sabin should be acknowledged for her beautiful use of imagery and symbolism, however, the book contained flaws as well. Tria is a strong heroine, but younger readers will not be able to appreciate the intricate plot that brings out these qualities. The plot is both thrilling and darkly brilliant, as Tria discovers herself and her magical powers. This book is a good read for someone who reads a great deal; for those who like a good book only once in a while, keep searching. I reccomend books such as Ella Enchanted(Levine), Witch Week(Wynne Jones), or Dragon's Milk (Fletcher) instead.Nevertheless, fantasy fans of Anne of Green Gables would appreciate this novel as would avid readers. Its paperback edition makes it affordable enough that you can read it and pass it on to a friend. So, 3 stars for originality (despite the whole Harry-Potter-but-not thing) in the plot and characters, and the other two left off for lack of character development and interest. Happy Reading!
Rating:
Summary: I give it 4.5---> Very Good Book
Review: This book was about a coming of age fantasy. Tria has just entered into The school for sorcery and nothing is as she expected. The teachers are dull, just like the school and the students are strange especially a mysterious boy - Oryon, who wants to be the most powerful one, he kidnaps her boyfriend and her and her troublesome roommate Lina must rescue him in a year or they'll never be seen again......... It's a very good book, It's hard to put down, I can't wait to read the other book by this author "A Perilous Power"
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