Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

From the Publisher's Weekly review:  "With no training on how to use the powers inherited from her absentee warlock father, Sophie Mercer keeps making rookie mistakes that force her mother to move them around the country to avoid attention. But when, at age 16, Sophie makes a very public error with a love spell at the prom, she is sent to Hecate Hall, 'the premier reformatory institution for Prodigium adolescents"' (aka shape-shifters, faeries, and witches).

She is assigned to live with the only vampire student allowed at the school, Jenna, whose previous roommate and best friend was killed under mysterious circumstances.  Sophie is also singled out by three gorgeous and powerful witches after she refuses to join their coven, especially after Sophie develops a crush and a friendship with the lead witch, Elodie's, boyfriend.  Life is made even more difficult by the previously-unknown-to-Sophie fact that her dad is the head of the magical council that sentenced all the juvenile Prodigium delinquents to Hex Hall.  Several more attacks are made on students, some fatal, all what appear to be vampire attacks, and Sophie is determined to help clear her only friend's reputation, while also receiving secret magical training from the ghost of her great-grandmother (who turns out to be a demon summoned by the coven, and the creature attacking and killing students).

This books is surprisingly funny, and I will definitely read the sequel.  It's pretty lightweight, dealing with Sophie's growing crush on a fellow student (who is possibly a member of a religious group dedicated to killing Prodigium in some pretty awful ways), her relationship with fellow students (complicated by her dad's position), her relationship with her roommate (whom she instinctively likes, despite everyone else's mistrust), and bullying from a teacher who hates Sophie's dad.  None of the characters are ever really fleshed out very much, but they don't feel flat and flavorless, either.  I'm definitely curious to know more about Cal, the groundskeeper who is a hottie, about Archer who is a warlock but might also be from a family trying to eradicate magical beings, and to find out more about Sophie's dad and their powers stemming from being demon-spawn (great granny called up a demon who possessed her when she was preggers, thus imbuing her line with demon magic, very similar to dark witch magic).  A fun read for teens who like some supernatural, but don't want anything super dark or sickly sweet.


Grades 7 and up.