Look out for my retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story, The Awoken, in this much anticipated anthology of reimagined fairytales. 

 “In the forest of primeval

A school for Good and Evil

Twin towers like two heads

One for the pure

And one for the wicked

Try to escape you'll always fail,

The only way out is

Through a fairytale.”

The poem is a nice little summation of what the school in The School for Good and Evil is all about.  The school trains the Villains, Princes and Princesses that play out their lives in fairy tales. Our two heroines, Sophie and Agatha are a bit different from all their classmates as they aren't the children of fairytale characters but were plucked from a regular “mundane” village.  They were raised reading fairy tales not being part of them. 

Sophie and Agatha are different in another way as well.  Sophie is blonde and perfectly groomed – the perfect princess – while Agatha is dark and morbid and always dressed in black – the perfect villain.  However, when the two unlikely friends are dropped at the School for Good and Evil by monstrous birds, it is Agatha who is enrolled in the School for Good and Sophie who is placed in the School for Evil. 

So surely you can guess where it goes from there?  Of course Agatha, while grumpy and anti-social, is at heart caring, loving and brave.  Sophie, while beautiful, is shallow, lazy and selfish.  The “sorting hat” put them where they belonged despite their outward appearances.  Both girls must then deal with being the outsider as they don't fit the mold of their respective schools and their friendship also faces many challenges, namely a boy. King Arthur’s son to be exact.  In many ways, it is a strange little book that aims to thwart the usual clichés while also affectionately embracing them. 

So at this point you are probably thinking ho hum, a silly little book about how appearances can be deceiving.  But hold up.  I myself felt that way early in the book though I nevertheless devoured it greedily.  It is a fun and snappy little story with engaging characters and a lot of humor and somewhere along the line this book surprised me.  It took me somewhere a bit deeper than I was expecting to go.  There was no profound life changing but it did become quite a bit more interesting than at first appearance.

The book is not just about not judging people on their appearances but also about not making the mistake of thinking of anyone as pure good or pure evil.  Humans are more complex than that and any institution that supports the idea of a strict dichotomy is corrupt and wrong.  It isn’t Sophie that is the Villain, though she does some truly horrible things, but the School for Good and Evil itself and even the society that insists on it existing that is the true menace.  All of these ideas are presented in a fast paced, funny, harrowing adventure story.  This was a very light and addictive read but it was also one that left me feeling surprisingly thoughtful at the end.

“You’re not evil Sophie," Agatha whispered, touching her decayed cheek. "You’re human."

FINAL VERDICT:  A fun adventurous fairy tale parody aimed at middle grade readers which may surprise you (in a good way).

I'm a bit of a mix of emotions right now. It's something like:

Squee!

Oh no.

WHAT?!?!?!!

Mwah-ha-ha!! *mad cackle*

YES!

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Sigh *blinks dreamily*

Huh.

Woah.

YEEEESSSS!!!!!

ARGHGHGH!!!!!!!!!!

November 2015?? So, so long away...

Note: For some reason this was saved in my drafts and never posted. Odd.

(This might be a little spoilery, not too bad, and I've used tags, but if you've not read it and want to go in blind, well, you might should skip this one)

So in my post yesterday I used the lyrics from White Christmas and the song Sisters. My use of that was, obviously, because at that point (83%) there was some serious sistery stuff going down. Now, I don't have a sister, so I don't really know that dynamic personally. I do have an older brother, so I get the sibling dynamic, but I do think there is something very different about the different sibling combinations (older bro/younger sis, older sis/younger bro, sisters, brothers, more than 2, etc, etc) and how those shape us. (It's a family dynamic thing and, as I've learned in my work, all families are crazy. Yes, mine is too. Yup, so is yours. Trust me.) So, that said, when I say "there was some serious sistery stuff going down" some of you will have a deeper understanding of what that means than I did since that's not part of my world view.

What am I trying to say here? Let's try this again...

Ok, so this book, it's about: Sisters, Family, A Hero's Journey, Growing Up, Responsibility, Living Up to Expectations, First Love, Undying Love, Sacrifice, Mythology, Fairy Tales, and, and, and...

That's a lot. Like a LOT a lot. Now, looking at that you might think it's a complete muddle, and it kinda is, but it also kinda works. As others have said, the language and imagery in this book are wonderful. The world the author creates is rich and complex and interesting, though it's not entirely clear as there are so many elements involved.

Personally, I didn't really have a problem with it. For me, what was there was so descriptive and entrancing that my imagination filled in or drifted right by any holes and I just floated along (like walking on a pool of water surrounded by small lights...heh).

Where it starts to fall apart for me a little is in the relationship with her sister, actually. There's so much of that relationship that drives the book, that drives Nyx and motivates her, but it was very hard to understand why, honestly. Based on what I read and what I was able to interpret about Nyx's family,

 That's a load of crap. 

(bringing it all back around now...)

That's why, at the beginning of this "review" I talked about the sister dynamic, because all I can think is the reason some of the motivations and actions didn't make sense to me is I don't have a sister and don't understand that bond.

All that said, this is a very creative Beauty & the Beast retelling (with elements of Bluebeard, Rumpelstiltskin, Greek/Roman mythology, Celtic Folklore, among others) that I really enjoyed. It could have been tightened up. The pacing could have been worked on a little and the characterization of some could have been better [cough]

[cough], but all in all a really enjoyable read.

It's official, I've now reached the stage in my reading of this book where I'm dying to know what happens, but I don't want it to end.