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Use this page to comment on and discuss The School for Good and Evil by Roman Chainani!

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I like how it’s crystal clear why Sophie was picked for the School of Evil from the get go in the book instead of having her seem good but slowly turn evil in the Netflix film.

My review is going to be late.

I hope I enjoy this book. I recommended it because I enjoyed watching the movie.

I am a little confused on why the characters seemed to be aged up in the movie.

In the books, they seem on the younger side.

I'm pretty sure they’re aged up in the movie because in the books they did a few questionable things for children

oh I didn't know there was a series but I watched that Netflix series it was kinda trash

The series also has the characters aging, so they may have chosen characters that could look the appropriate ages for the next few seasons.

I quite liked the book, and completely understand the reasoning to age up the characters in the film.
My personal opinion, but I don't really like Sophie.

I don’t like Sophie either. She was watered down a lot in the movie. Book!Sophie is terrible.

I am going to have to agree with everyone else so far in saying that I could not stand Sophie. I have not watched the show or movie, but I am going to have to get on that. Are other people planning on continuing the series?

I don’t know. Sophie is making this story hard to read.

I read this book a while ago but I counted it as read. I don’t remember Sophie being that bad though.

Well Soman Chainani said that Sophie is a representation of his personality so

You're telling me Sophie's been dreaming of being CAPTURED by a strange man who 'takes only those past their twelfth year, when they could no longer disguise as children' into the forest, to be dropped out of the sky to one of two schools miles away, to be groomed, evaluated, and married off? The 'School Master' sounds like a predator to me, and Sophie is a disillusioned jerk. She's hoping for this so much that, to look to good while it happens, she rolls around in caviar, goat milk, cow blood, and TURTLE YOLK?! That's just plain disgusting, and personal attack against me—I love turtles! And why does Sophie think her father doesn't love her because she's not a boy? There's literally no context to the idea.

Bailey wrote: "Use this page to comment on and discuss The School for Good and Evil by Roman Chainani!

If you are including spoilers either make it clear by writing ***SPOILERS before your post as to not ruin it..."

I would LOVE to be a mod for this, as this is one of my favorite book series!!

Bibliophile wrote: "You're telling me Sophie's been dreaming of being CAPTURED by a strange man who 'takes only those past their twelfth year, when they could no longer disguise as children' into the forest, to be dro..."

Finish the series and you'll find out why

Bibliophile wrote: "You're telling me Sophie's been dreaming of being CAPTURED by a strange man who 'takes only those past their twelfth year, when they could no longer disguise as children' into the forest, to be dro..."

It's addressed further into the series

LadyMaeRVA wrote: "Bibliophile wrote: "You're telling me Sophie's been dreaming of being CAPTURED by a strange man who 'takes only those past their twelfth year, when they could no longer disguise as children' into t..."

I believe I added you as a discussion leader for this book. If not, feel free to take it away as our moderator for this book. Thank you for volunteering!!!!!

Does anyone else have a problem with the Evil and Good uniforms? Kids in tunics with no pants, 'appallingly short' dresses with 'three buttons missing', and tight Victorian suits?

Bibliophile wrote: "Does anyone else have a problem with the Evil and Good uniforms? Kids in tunics with no pants, 'appallingly short' dresses with 'three buttons missing', and tight Victorian suits?"

Oh wow! I read this a while ago and apparently forgot about that. Yes, yes I do have a problem with that.

I finished it. So, from what I gather, the School For Good and Evil is a cult of kids being humiliated, tortured, objectified, threatened, harassed, and exposed, all in order to teach them to: Hate those who go against the beliefs forced upon them, conform to those beliefs, rip their peers' clothes off if they feel it necessary, commit heinous acts of violence, objectify their peers, and be okay with having their whole lives planned out from the mind of a magical, reality-warping author who wants every being's life to be something lived out of a Grimm Brothers storybook. 😐... Wow. And the whole time the School Master was plotting to make moves on Sophie. There were a million EASIER ways he could've got to her, not that taking any of those would've excused the actions of the creep. Sophie and Tedros are insufferable, entitled jerks, and their entire relationship was built on lust, not love. Agatha, I wholeheartedly respect. Writing wise, my only issue was Chainani interrupting Sophie, Agatha, and Tedro's internal dialogues repeatedly, his poor transition of character POVs, insane abundance of dashes, clear steals from Harry Potter, repetitive writing (I can't remember how many times I read about Agatha's 'clumps' of steel that can withstand a full-grown gargoyle's teeth 😑), and unnecessarily disturbing aspects. The whole failed-students-being-turned-into -plants-and-animals thing was especially heartbreaking. 😢 But there were some funny parts, and I liked the storybook-paradox concept.

Bibliophile wrote: "I finished it. So, from what I gather, the School For Good and Evil is a cult of kids being humiliated, tortured, objectified, threatened, harassed, and exposed, all in order to teach them to: Hate..."

This is an amazing synopsis!

Thank you. :-)

I loved this series so much when I was younger but I feel like I need to reread it to understand it with new eyes yk

I am about 20% of the way through, and I have to agree, Sophie is quite insufferable. She is so vain and conceded. From the very beginning, I felt that she wasn't as "good" as she believed herself to be.
I also thought that when Agatha was insistent that they made a mistake, that she wasn't meant to be there, I was thinking about how a truly bad person wouldn't try to be so honest about the situation. They would take their good fortune and run with it. That in itself seemed to prove that Agatha was worthy of being in the school for good.

That's very profound.

Naomi wrote: "I am about 20% of the way through, and I have to agree, Sophie is quite insufferable. She is so vain and conceded. From the very beginning, I felt that she wasn't as "good" as she believed herself ..."

Well stated!

***SPOILERS
I am not really sure how I feel about this book, if I am completely honest. I do feel like the author did a very good job enveloping you in the book and painting the scene, without it being over descriptive.
My main problem with this book is the grooming vibes that I get from the school master. It just does not sit well with me.
I will say that I like that Agatha was able to save Sophie with true love's kiss, but I am interested to see what it does to their story and where they go from here.

So I went ahead and hopped onto this train because this series is so popular and I try to get around to reading those when I can. I had no idea there was a Netflix show. We have this classed as Juvenile fiction in my library also.

So I get all the "I hate Sophie" comments. I wasn't particularly a fan either, but I think that was kind of the point. She wears the trappings of being "good" but it's all just manipulation, which seems to be why she was put in the other school. I'm not finished with it yet, so I'm hoping some good points are made about the school's incredibly surface depictions of who is supposed to be good and who is supposed to be evil. But I think a deeper point being made (I hope) seems to be that nobody is really all one or all the other. Even the other students who are supposed to be one or the other really aren't.

As for why Sophie wants to go, that seems pretty clear. (view spoiler)[ She wants an extraordinary life and she wants to be a princess. She sees a way to get both by getting taken away to the school. (hide spoiler)] As for the "grooming" vibes, I tend to think American culture in particular tends to oversexualize things. I'm not really seeing that yet. It may show up later in the book.

I only read the first book in 2019. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Loved the ending though. No spoilers though