The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

I've been curious about this book for while. It has compelling cover art and it hit the New York Times Bestseller List which always gets my attention for YA. My sister-in-law read it and had a sort of ambivalent reaction to it which is intriguing in and of itself. As a general rule, Carra tends to have clear reactions to the things that she reads. So, I borrowed it. I can see why Carra had the reaction she did, I can also see how it got to be a bestseller.

The School for Good and Evil is about two girls, Sophie and Agatha, who live in a village called Gavaldon that is completely enclosed in a ominous and somewhat magical forest. The village is completely isolated by this forest and it is impossible to escape. Every four years on the eleventh day of the eleventh month two children who are at least 12 are abducted. One child is good, sweet, and beautiful. One child is evil, sinister, and ugly. Everyone is sure that Sophie will be the good child taken this year and that Agatha will be the one taken for evil. Indeed, Sophie wants to be the one taken.

Sophie and Agatha are, in fact, the ones taken but against expectation Sophie ends up in the school for evil and Agatha ends up with the good. Is it a mistake, or is there something going on beneath the surface?

The world Chainani created for this book is amazing. I absolutely love the premise. The students are basically in training to be in fairy tales. That could be saccharine but it becomes clear very early on that there are dire consequences for failing in your studies which gives the whole world a bit of an edge from the get go. All the characters, in both schools, are well developed. All the primary and secondary characters are fully three dimensional which is challenging given how many there are. The plot reversals all make sense for the characters, and there are a startling number of them.

There are flaws, however. Firstly, Sophie and Agatha are supposed to be 12 and I very quickly stop believing that. The act and react to situations more like a 15 or 16 year old. Frankly, the good schools focus on princesses snaring princes is more than a little odd if they are all supposed to be between 12 and 16, the age range alone makes the concept a little problematic. However, more critically, I think: there is just too much going on here and not enough space for it. There is a massive cast of fully developed characters and almost too many plot twists. While everything that happens is properly seeded in the narrative, so much happens that it is easy to forget say...a two line description on the second page that becomes critically important in the last twenty pages. The last 100 pages or so end up feeling very compressed.

I think Chainani would have done better to split the plot arch over two, if not three, books and take more time developing events. However, I did very much enjoy the read and would recommend it despite the flaws.