Reviews tagging 'Death'

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

23 reviews

_alyssar_'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Body shaming, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Child death, Death, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Trafficking

jenna36's review against another edition

adventurous dark lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I enjoyed this book! I love a good fairy tale gone off the rails. There were some soft horror elements (from classic fairy tales) that really worked well for me. I'm hoping we see some more of the side characters next book, since they (especially the Nevers) were delightful.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Fatphobia, and Violence

kaziaroo's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I picked this up because I enjoyed the film, although I didn't realise it was based on a children's book. It did contain some very undisguised dark themes though, so if it wasn't for the age of the characters, the writing style and some of the humour, I'd be tempted to call it YA.

It's a shame to see that children's stories still rely on fatphobia and making fun of "ugly" people for humour, and there was a lot of stereotyping of what "good" and "evil" people look like – although a lot of this is critiqued by the narrative, there were some blurred lines: for example, while we are shown that being mean to Dot about her fatness is bad, the author also mentions her size nearly every time she appears, and her size and appetite makes up most of her characterisation. Thankfully, there wasn't a hooked nose in sight, unlike in the film. 

While the plot dragged a bit in places, I really enjoyed the characters in this book and loved the portrayal of a character's descent into madness and the protagonists' respective identity crises. It was a really fun, if dark, read.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Fatphobia, Medical content, Body shaming, Bullying, Violence, War, Animal cruelty, Sexism, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Lesbophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Xenophobia, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Torture, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Mental illness

neko_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark lighthearted tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

3.75 
ok so mixed feelings here. on one side i hated it, sophie was pretty much unbearable but on the other side I thoroughly enjoyed it. the world is just amazing, and while sophie is definitely not my favourite character, especially at the start of the book, I do love her development at the end. 

now the characters I do like. hester, anadil and dot. i love them so much. the fact that they are the figure of evil for the start of the book, but there is so much good in their hearts and I love them.

agatha is one of my favourite characters in this book. her development, insecurities and personality is amazing

overall a pretty good read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Bullying, and Body shaming

Moderate: Fatphobia, Violence, and Death

Minor: Homophobia, Blood, and Death of parent

hayleythegoose's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Toxic friendship, and Sexism

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Blood, Death, and Homophobia

saskiajva's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

This book started so strong and I really loved almost every single part of it. The plot is cute, creative, and unexpected.

One central theme of this book revolves around how your actions are what make you beautiful/ugly, and not vice versa, which I loved, but I felt like there could have been some improvement to how that theme was executed. Specifically once the characters started physically changing appearance in correlation to their actions, it almost had the exact opposite message

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Death, Murder, War, Body shaming, Child abuse, and Child death

samantha_06x's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Loved the book the author developed the magical lore and world building well, by slowly introducing the elements as the main characters discover the new world we are able to learn and understand with the characters as apposed to being frustrated by their ignorance. 
The book does a good job of making you as a reader become invested in Sophie despite her questionable decisions and ultimately want a happy ending for the 2 main characters. 
Lost a star as

I felt the end was slightly rushed with the appearance of the headmaster which was quickly resolved which did not give me as a reader enough time to experience the shock of the twist fully as the plot swiftly moves on.

 
As well as this when linking being evil to ugliness there will always be some issues as the concept of ugliness is inherently racist/abelist/fat-phobic. I don't think this was handled well with

Sophie's insults towards Dot being fat. If Sophie's comments were evidence of her evilness this would be slightly better. However this is not the case as at the end of the book when the villains are transformed to be good and given 'makeovers' Dot's body is described to transform into an 'hourglass figure'. I was shocked at this unnecessary addition which justified Sophie's comments.

Although the book is written for a younger audience I think anyone who enjoys fantasy books like Harry Potter will also enjoy this book. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming and Fatphobia

Minor: Kidnapping, Death, Homophobia, Death of parent, Child death, Sexism, and Grief

ednam0dewannabe's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Bullying, and Violence

Moderate: Body shaming, Death, and Fatphobia

Minor: Blood, Death of parent, and War

briar_fawn's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Bit of a slow start but certainly picked up! Not the subtlest in its plot twists but that can be expected for the age rating and it managed to get me throughly hooked on its world building. Agatha is a highly compelling character and I will absolutely be returning to this series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship

Moderate: Kidnapping

Minor: Death and Torture

chrisljm's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

I know a lot of the stereotypes presented in the book are based on tropes often seen in fairytales, but when you spend all 500 pages reenforcing them instead of showing how good and bad people can’t just be categorized into archetypes, it just becomes sexist, fatphobic, and a bunch of other problematic shit. I just don’t understand what exactly was the author’s goal – whether to dismantle or reaffirm fairytale tropes, because it comes off as reaffirming them.

The romance also doesn’t make sense. I know romances between princes and princesses are also part of fairytale tropes, but they were definitely trying to force something real between Agatha and Tedros, and there was just no chemistry at all. Like the only thing that drew him to Agatha during the tests was a “feeling”, and after realizing that she’s good and not a liar, he’s in love with her all of a sudden? Ok. The characters, as well as the story, were very two-dimensional and had no growth, and the ending felt rushed.

I also want to add on that Sophie and Agatha are supposed to be best friends but not only was Sophie a shit person, but she was also a shit friend. Readers are provided plenty of context on why Sophie is perfect for the School of Evil, but we don’t see any good memories between Sophie and Agatha that show why they’re friends with each other. Instead, you see Sophie barge her way to Agatha’s house regularly to build good credit, give her nasty cookies, and call her ugly.

The book felt long and tedious to get through because 1. we saw way too much of Sophie’s POV, especially for how insufferable and unselfaware she is. 2. Agatha just gets manipulated over and over and over again. ENOUGH.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Death, Sexism, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Body shaming, Confinement, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Child death, Abandonment, Blood, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Violence, Murder, Slavery, War, and Torture

Minor: Alcoholism, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Racial slurs, and Stalking