A World Without Princes

April 1, 2014

Gr 6 & Up-Sophie and Agatha have returned home from the School of Good and Evil, figuring their troubles were over. Friendship won the day, and the girls gained their happy endings. Or have they? There are wishes left ungranted and it seems their unusual victory has changed the very nature of the School itself-and not in a good way. The girls find themselves drawn back to the School once more, destined to face malevolent magic, danger, and treachery. Can Agatha find a way to put right what's gone wrong, and still save her best friend? Can Sophie keep the Witch at bay? Happily ever after never seemed so far away. This second title in the dramatic fantasy series will be eagerly read by fans of the first title, The School For Good and Evil (HarperCollins, 2013), but will likely prove confusing for newcomers. The writing has gained some polish moving into this second installment, but an about-face plot twist creates a disconcerting set of messages regarding the girls and boys of the School and may put off some readers. The conclusion remains mostly open-ended and there are several cliff-hangers that will presumably be resolved in a third title. This will appeal most readily to readers with a taste for fairy tales and drama similar to Shannon Hale's "Ever After High" series (Little, Brown).-Stephanie Whelan, New York Public Library

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2014
In a middle volume framed as a battle of the sexes, the author pulls some clever switcheroos (The School for Good and Evil, 2013). A sincere if ill-timed wish summons Agatha and Sophie back to the twinned School for Good and Evil--to find it transformed into separate schools for girls and for boys. The latter is filled with brutal, callous, unwashed louts led (at first) by vengeful Tedros of Camelot. A scary new dean in the former has changed the fairy-tale textbooks to make all the male characters evil and instituted radical policies for the girls: "We wear pants, we don't do our nails...we even eat cheese!" Though Chainani tries to keep the rival camps entirely separate by leaving out any hint of sex or even (a mighty pull between Agatha and Tedros aside) romance, Sophie's temporary transformation into a boy at one point to sneak into the other school leads to a tender scene with Tedros. Another character turns out to be a spell-disguised boy who just preferred the girls' school. Readers will be drawn in by set pieces, including the currently obligatory Hunger Games-style competition, but nearly all turn out to be incidental to the broader plot, which ends, of course, in a cliffhanger. The closing volume should tie up those loose ends with, if the first two volumes are indicators, wild swings of terror and hilarity. (Fantasy. 11-13)

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April 15, 2014
Grades 6-8 Sophie and Agatha left The School for Good and Evil (2013) as friends. Now, back in their village, they are having their Ever After, but as it turns out, their friendship isn't quite enough for Agatha, whose lingering feelings for Prince Tedros are upsetting their relationship. When the girls are forced to revisit the school, they learn that everything has changed. Now, it's the girls against the boys, and the female school is run by the manipulative Dean Sadar, who thinks that girls should write their own happy endings, without boys, and is willing to go to war with them to make it so. This sequel is stronger than the original and offers readers plenty to think about, especially when it comes to gender, love, relationships between sexes, and, of course, the most slippery aspects of good and evil. As Agatha notes, Every fairy tale could be twisted to serve a purpose, and here, the stories bend and twist on themselves right up until the last pages, leaving readers anxious to find out in the next book exactly who ends up with whomand why. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The first book in the series debuted on the New York Times best-seller list, has been translated into languages across six continents, and will be a Universal Pictures film. Now that's a high-demand backstory.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)