The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani – Spoiler Free Review

Title: The School for Good and Evil
Author: Soman Chainani
Series Name: The School for Good and Evil
Genre: Childrens Fantasy
Publication Date: May 14th, 2015
Pages: 488 (Paperback)
Publishers: Harper Collins
Rating:

The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away.

This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all the lost children go: the fabled School for Good & Evil, where ordinary boys and girls are trained to be fairy tale heroes and villains. As the most beautiful girl in Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of being kidnapped into an enchanted world her whole life. With her pink dresses, glass slippers, and devotion to good deeds, she knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and graduate a storybook princess. Meanwhile Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks, wicked pet cat, and dislike of nearly everyone, seems a natural fit for the School for Evil.

But when the two girls are swept into the Endless Woods, they find their fortunes reversed—Sophie’s dumped in the School for Evil to take Uglification, Death Curses, and Henchmen Training, while Agatha finds herself in the School For Good, thrust amongst handsome princes and fair maidens for classes in Princess Etiquette and Animal Communication.. But what if the mistake is actually the first clue to discovering who Sophie and Agatha really are…?

The School for Good & Evil is an epic journey into a dazzling new world, where the only way out of a fairy tale is to live through one.

This is just going to be a rant review of what I thought of this book. It won’t exactly be short but I’m not breaking it up into categories and stuff like I usually do. I just need to get all my hate out some way and this is what this blog is for! Honestly, I wanted to DNF this book at 100 pages in but I also didn’t want to because then I wouldn’t have completed the challenge I did for #TheReadingQuest.

This book was not for me. It is meant for a really young audience and that definitely came across. I would honestly say this feels more like a children’s book than middle grade. But all the cheesy romance and pettiness in this book just irritated me completely! There was only one part that I actually enjoyed in this but that didn’t last long as by the next chapter it was back to the crappy message this book was sent off. I’m assuming it wasn’t intended but it did come across.

I hated the ugly has to be evil and beauty has to be good. They did kinda go against that with the two MCs. Showing that evil can be beautiful but then went against it again when the ‘good’ ones did something not so good by mistake and they turned ‘ugly’ and the ‘evil’ did something kinda good they turned ‘beautiful’. I am so not for that message! And when one of the MCs did something bad she started growing warts and stuff? Sorry but that just sounds like something your parents would tell you when you were really young to try and stop you misbehaving.

I didn’t like the characters that much. Agatha was okay but still irritating towards the end. Sophie was just pathetic and self-centered. The ‘twist’ thing at the end with the School Master was just pointless, stupid and overall I didn’t like the school mastered thing anyway. Someone that sits in a tower and watches children and then punishes the losers but won’t even face them people he is punishing? That is just beyond pathetic to me. Most of the teachers were either pathetic, cowards, selfish or cruel. The other ‘good’ students were just vain and love sick. the other ‘evil’ students weren’t that bad. Hort was kinda pathetic and made me think of a love sick puppy dog. Hester, Anadil and Dot were okay. Hester was kinda cruel but also she wasn’t completely thick like some of the others. Dot was a stereotype! Like a ‘fat’ kid that can turn anything into chocolate…. Like, come on! And seriously like every character in this book was so gullible and would change their minds every chapter! Seriously just go sit down in a corner think about who you are and what you want to be and stick with it! This ‘I want to be ‘good”, then 10 seconds later ‘I want to be ‘evil” was just so irritating!

Overall I did not enjoy this book. It was predictable and petty. I don’t agree with the message it had and I’m just not for all this good and evil, princess and witches, balls and love crap. Also so much insta love! Like I know they are like 12 or something and they wouldn’t know love if it bit them on the butt but it just irritated me to no end.

Overall! I’m just too old for this shit.
Actually I don’t even think 12 year old me would have enjoyed this to be completely honest!

Well that is all for this odd review! I am out of things to say and I just glad this book is over! It’s not a short book either! Nearly 500 pages and it wasn’t easy forcing myself through it!