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A review by bookph1le
The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani
3.0
I'm kind of on the fence about this book. While I liked some of what it had to say, particularly about the notion of the appearance of good or evil versus a person's substance, there were other things about it that bothered me. In particular, there was a thread of fat shaming I did not like, and I thought Tedros had some sexism he needed to work a little harder to overcome. Hopefully these things will be addressed in future installments, since the premise of this series does seem to be to deconstruct the sanitized and saccharine versions of fairy tales so many of us grew up on.
My other critique is I found parts of this book to be derivative. I felt a bit like I was reading some Harry Potter fanfiction taking place in an alternate universe. Who knows, maybe every fantasy middle grade novel set at a magical boarding school will feel something like this, but it didn't sit well with me.
Lastly, while I appreciated the themes of friendship, I never felt like Sophie and Agatha were a good example of friendship. Sophie straight up uses Agatha for most of the book, but when it counts Agatha is also on the verge of throwing her friend aside for a boy she doesn't really know all that well. There's some girl power in this book, but I guess I would have liked to see more of it. One of these days, I want to read a book where instead of arguing over the cute guy, the best friends look at him, shrug, and walk away while saying, "Meh. Our friendship is more important."
My other critique is I found parts of this book to be derivative. I felt a bit like I was reading some Harry Potter fanfiction taking place in an alternate universe. Who knows, maybe every fantasy middle grade novel set at a magical boarding school will feel something like this, but it didn't sit well with me.
Lastly, while I appreciated the themes of friendship, I never felt like Sophie and Agatha were a good example of friendship. Sophie straight up uses Agatha for most of the book, but when it counts Agatha is also on the verge of throwing her friend aside for a boy she doesn't really know all that well. There's some girl power in this book, but I guess I would have liked to see more of it. One of these days, I want to read a book where instead of arguing over the cute guy, the best friends look at him, shrug, and walk away while saying, "Meh. Our friendship is more important."