Book Review 14: The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

I know it has been a while, since I posted a book review, but here I go, trying to catch up again xD

 

The School for Good and Evil (#1) by Soman Chainani

 

 

Things to know:

• I read the original English version
• It was published April 2014
• It has 488 page
• It is set in The School for Good and Evil and Gavaldon of the Woods beyond
• I started: 9th March and ended it: 26th April
• Book 1 of a triology

This book was a present from Lily (thank you so much!). It has a great cover, so I understand why she had to buy it xD

The book begins in the tiny village of Gavaldon in the woods beyond. There are two girls, who couldn't be different, but still are best friends. Sophie, blonde, blue eyes and as pretty as any princess, and then there is Agatha, short dark hair, dark eyes, who looks like a witch. 

In Gavaldon, every couple of years 2 children are kidnapped to go to a school and then maybe appear in a fairytale. One is always good the other child is evil. 
To make it short, Agatha and Sophie are the ones kidnapped, but there seems to be a terrible mistake happening, as Agatha is put in the school for good, and Sophie in the school for evil. 

As soon as they arrive, Agatha just wants to go home, while Sophie wants to switch schools to have a chance for her own"happy ever after".
 But this isn't all, they figure out, that when a student fail in 3 classes directly after each other, they fail, and in this school a fail means death. But if you are in the wrong school, how are you supposed to pass?

~~~~~~~~~~

First of all, this book is meant to be for 8 to 12 year old. I'd personally not give this to my 8 year old cousin to read, but then again, teenagers might find it boring. The thing is, it's a fairytale type story (with namedropping loads of fairytale heroines, eg. Cinderella) which of course is great for the ages named, but then I found it brutal at times.An example for this would be how it is said, that students with lower ranks will be turned to animals to later help princesses, and some of those where stuffed and put in school corridors for new students to look at. Meaning; human children are STUFFED and KILLED... like honestly? I mean the 2 main characters are only 12, and they have to fear to be killed right from the start??
Another thing that I didn't really like is how it is said, that ugly girls are evil, and pretty ones are good - and you are only pretty with long and soft hair. This (or something similar) is said a couple of times, and I can't really understand, as this tone only changes to the very end of the book...
And then when the ball comes, and every "good" girl, who isn't asked to the ball fails, because: "boys can do without girls, but what is a princess without a prince?" HONESTLY NOW??

I, as a 21 year old, fully understand that many of these things I criticise are meant to be sarcastic, but I am not so sure a 8 year old would always understand. 

As you can see from the time it took me to read this, I didn't enjoy it that much. It took me ages to get into and I personally found the middle part the most boring. It only got interesting for me on the last 100 pages or so.
What I want to say with all this is, that I don't really know who the target group is. If its supposed to be for pre-teen girls, then please don't talk about stuffed students in this way, if it's for older ones, please change your writing style.


There are still parts I liked though. For example how Agatha and Sophie always try to be friends even though they are supposed to be enemies...

Sorry for the very negative review, the book just made me mad at some points >.<

Lisa~