After thinking about it a bit, you know what Bluebell Hall reminds me of?
NaNoWriMo
Think about it, it's a short novel. Way too short to do justice to what could be great protagonists and situations. NaNo is all about making short novels, 50k words being barely big enough to be considered a novel at all. 40k and below are considered novellas, and modern novels are generally about two or three times that length, and even bigger if you're writing an epic fantasy or historical novel.
Plus there's the "skimming" feel of the whole thing. NaNo, for all its good points, isn't about making good content. It's about prioritizing volume and speed. Which are good, but you then have to go back and rewrite a few times, which a lot of NaNo writers don't really bother with. Editing and rewriting are hard, and much different skills from writing quickly. If you haven't built much skill at either, well...
Dunno if any of this is correct, but my gut feeling is Bluebell Hall is a NaNovel that got polished a bit.