Reviews

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainini
Book Review by Emily  Grade 9
Book Rating: 4/5
I really liked this book because I like books that take classic fairytales and add a twist. In
this book, two best friends Sophie and Agatha find out firsthand where all the missing
kids in their village have gone when they get kidnapped too. The School for Good and
Evil takes kids and trains them to be either heroes or villains in the fairy tales that
everyone has read.
Sophie is the most beautiful girl in their village. She wears pink dresses, does good
deeds and wants to be a storybook princess. Agatha, on the other hand, wears all
black, seems unclean and is disliked by most people in the village. She seems like a
perfect match for a villain. When they get to the School for Good and Evil, however,
their roles are reversed. Agatha is sent to the school for good and Sophie is sent to the
school for evil.
The author does a really good job with character development. The characters seem
very real. You really get to know a lot of the students that are being trained to be villains
and sympathize with them. The kids in the School for Evil are my favourite characters.
The students in the School for Good seem very one dimensional and have less
substance. Agatha is the exception to this. She is the character with the most substance
in the whole book.
The book is quite long, almost 500 pages. It is also very descriptive. That is not a bad
thing but sometimes it seems almost overly descriptive and it feels like the same thing
could be said a little quicker. Throughout the book Agatha and Sophie are put through
trials and contests. There are always interesting twists and unexpected results. The girls
pass and fail and then move on to the next trial. This pattern can also get a little
repetitive.
Overall I highly recommend this book. The ending is a shocker and it is a very good
story overall.