The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, is a fast-paced fairy tale {somewhat fractured} about two girls searching for their Happily Ever Afters.
But their Happily Ever Afters and their journeys to find themselves are not at all what either girl could ever have imagined.
And it’s fun to read.
It’s a middle-grade novel, written for ages 8 to 12, with the paperback at 544 pages long.
The story begins with two very different girls: Sophie, a gorgeous wannabe princess who spends her days preening and dreaming of princes, and Agatha, a quiet loner who lives in a graveyard and has a cat named Reaper who leaves beheaded birds in her pockets.
Sophie and Agatha only entered a relationship because Sophie was trying to demonstrate how “Good” and charitable she was by befriending the homely outcast dubbed a witch by the townspeople. This relationship, however, grew into a real {albeit somewhat unbalanced} friendship before the story even starts.
Their story starts for us as they are kidnapped by the elusive School Master and dropped into the School for Good and Evil. Unexpectedly, however, Agatha is dropped into the School for Good and Sophie into the School for Evil. Both girls are certain a mistake has been made.
As the book progresses, we see Agatha continually and fiercely trying to protect and help her friend, as Sophie grows more and more selfish and angry. And even though the characters keep showing us their true natures and showing the audience that maybe, just maybe, they’re in the correct schools after all, the book isn’t that cut and dry.
In between colorful school lessons of witches learning the correct way to cook children and princesses learning how to speak to squirrels, and in between competitions where princes try to discern which magical pumpkin is actually a princess, the children face some very dangerous and quite scary situations. Which is – actually – very in keeping with the style of fairy tales.
But the point to all of these lessons and competitions and circuses and balls is that we learn that even the baddest of the Bad students have their good points, and even the Good students are perfectly capable of evil.
I rather enjoyed the book, and I was very happy with the way it ended. Now, when I started reading it, I didn’t even know it was part of a series, but I was relieved to find that out, because when the book ended, I did want to know more of their story, even though it still would have functioned as a stand alone novel.
And it’s all done in a very entertaining way through a story that moves along at a good pace: fast enough to keep kids and young adults entertained, but not so quickly that things get overwhelming or confused. The language is intelligent, the imagery is vivid, and the story was creative. I laughed … I cried … and I totally think everyone who is even remotely and mildly interested in fantasy and fairy tales should read it. There isn’t anything in there that’s inappropriate for young kids, but I feel that adults will rather enjoy the tongue-in-cheek fairy tale references. I absolutely plan to read the sequels.
You can see a preview of The School for Good and Evil
Happy Reading!
Roaming Rosie 