REVIEW: The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani
RATING: 5 Stars
GENRE: YA Fantasy
SERIES: The School for Good and Evil #1

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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.

MY THOUGHTS:
Don't get put off by this young looking cover - this book is very much YA. Some of the themes mentioned are quite deep and mature and the plot is far from simple.

Every few years, the school master come in the night to take two children from the village. One is usually a kind a beautiful child, destined to be a prince/princess. The other an ugly outcast who is destined to be a villain. From there they are taken to The School For Good and Evil where they will prepare for their fairy tale lives. So what happens when beautiful Sophie is taken to The School For Evil and village outcast Sophie to the School of Good.

The concept of this book is really unique as I haven't really come across anything like it. Without becoming one of this people who just compare books, throughout the novel I had a vibe of Harry Potter/Once Upon a Time. I really enjoyed how the author weave in the classic fairy tale characters to show how they were once like Sophie and Agatha.

There were a lot of feel in this book as it does touch on the theme love and friendship. However, the main thing I felt throughout was confusion - in a good way. This is because I was conflicts in how I felt about the mix up of schools and where the plot was going. In my opinion, this plot was very complex for a middle grade book as I really couldn't predict where it was going!