Neha Patil (Editor)

The School for Good and Evil

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Cover artist
  
Iacopo Bruno

Publisher
  
HarperCollins

No. of books
  
4

Genre
  
Language
  
English

Published
  
2013 - Current

Author
  
Number of books
  
3

The School for Good and Evil Blog TourGiveaway Interviewing Hester from THE LAST EVER AFTER by

Media type
  
Print, e-book, audiobook

Books
  
A World Without Princes, The School for Good and Evil, The School for Good and Evil

Similar
  
Soman Chainani, The Aeronaut's Windlass, The Beatrice Letters

The School for Good and Evil is a New York Times bestselling children's Fantasy book trilogy by Soman Chainani. The first book, The School for Good and Evil, was published on May 14, 2013 through HarperCollins. The second volume, A World Without Princes, was published in 2014, and the third, The Last Ever After, appeared in 2015. The series is set in a world where every four years two children are chosen to attend a prestigious school where fairy tale heroes and villains are made.

Contents

The School for Good and Evil 17 Best images about The School for Good and Evil on Pinterest

Film rights to The School for Good and Evil have been purchased by Universal Pictures with the intention to turn the series into a film trilogy.

The School for Good and Evil Becky39s review of The School for Good and Evil

A fourth book in the series, Quests for Glory, is coming out in Summer 2017. This fourth book is the first of a new trilogy Chainani announced in March 1st, 2017, when he also revealed the book's cover.

The School for Good and Evil 1000 images about The School for Good and Evil on Pinterest Book

The school for good and evil 3 the last ever after by soman chainani official book trailer


The School for Good and Evil

The School for Good and Evil The School for Good and Evil Movie Poster by TheMaleviQueen on

In the village of Gavaldon, every four years, two children of either gender and beyond age twelve are kidnapped by an unknown force, and are never found. However, sets of mysterious books appear at a local bookstore, and other children not kidnapped begin to realize the kidnapped children are in these stories. Their theories are not believed.

The School for Good and Evil httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaen886The

Soon, best friends Sophie and Agatha find themselves in a potential predicament: Sophie wishes to be kidnapped and become a princess in the fated School for Good, while Agatha is deemed a "perfect fit" for the School for Evil. However, once they are taken from Gavaldon, they are each sent to the opposite schools. Sophie becomes a "Never" and Agatha becomes an "Ever". They each try to switch schools and potentially escape, but fail every time. However, Sophie has become smitten by an Ever Boy named Tedros, who is revealed to be the son of the legendary King Arthur of Camelot.

The School for Good and Evil Soman Chainani

During one of their escape attempts, Agatha and Sophie find the tower of the School Master, who gives them a riddle they must solve in order to go home: "What can Evil never have that Good can never live without?" Agatha soon realizes that the answer is "Love", and that Sohpie must kiss Tedros in order to get them both back home.

Agatha helps Sophie try to woo Tedros using her abilities to mogrify into other animals and cast spells, but Sophie would rather stay in the Schools and be with Tedros forever than leave him forever, much to Agatha's dismay. Tedros and Sophie's relationship ultimately ends during the Trial by Tale event when he discovers that Agatha was helping Sophie not only to succeed in wooing him, but also to pass her classes as "#1 Villain." Sophie undergoes changes after the incident and begins having Nemesis Dreams, which are dreams that reveal a person's nemesis that they must kill in order to survive their fairytale; the downside is that the nemesis will grow stronger as the person grows weaker. Tedros soon realizes he loves Agatha, causing Sophie to further fall into her rage and slowly turn into a bald, shriveled witch. It is also revealed that Agatha is Sophie's nemesis.

Determined to rewrite her story, Sophie breaks into the School Master's tower, only to find he is a young man who only wants her love. Once she provides a kiss, however, he begins to rot and she heartbreakingly remembers that Villains are incapable of love. After falling into a moat full of sludge in front of the Schools, the School Master prepares to throw the Storian into Agatha to kill her and take Sophie for himself. Sophie ultimately saves Agatha from the pen, but gets speared in the heart as a result. The School Master's brother soon appears and kills him, but it is too late for Sophie to be saved, and she dies in Agatha's arms. Agatha kisses her, and brings Sophie back to life due to her wishing ability. They realize they can be friends and not enemies.

A World Without Princes

Agatha and Sophie have returned home and they are accepted as heroes who have returned home. Unfortunately for Agatha, Sophie is taking advantage of this opening. Whereas Agatha wants nothing to do with fame, Sophie puts on many shows. At Sophie's father's wedding, Agatha suddenly wishes for another ending to her story, an ending with Tedros. This wish causes magical arrows to come and messages saying to give Sophie to them. Angry, the town turns into a mob demanding Sophie be given to whoever wants her. The Elders says that they are protecting Sophie, but in reality they are planning to give in to the mob. They tell Sophie to stay in the church alone; and Agatha, thinking that Sophie would be safe, leaves. Sophie is taken into the forest with a message on her chest made from her own blood. She is hung on a tree with the message Take Me and left to die. Agatha finds Sophie and runs away with her trying not to be attacked by the mob. They soon arrive in a fairground and they notice butterflies trying to help them. They get on a train unknowingly bound for the School of Good and Evil.

Arriving at the doors of the School for Good, they are swamped by a herd of girls from both schools robed in blue. As the girls are introduced to their classmates (including a silent girl named Yara) and taken around by the new Dean, Evelyn Sader, they notice that the school has been changed and the fairy tales on the walls have changed as a result, with the damsels in distress now becoming warrior women. Agatha mentions the absence of boys, and it is discovered that after they left, all the girls from the School for Evil were repelled and had to come to the School for Good seeking refuge. The boys from the School for Good were then expelled by an unseen force and had to go to the School for Evil.

As the truth and impact of what they have done settles on the girls, Sophie is horrified to discover that they are back due to Agatha's wish for a different ending to their tale, mainly that she ends up with Tedros. Agatha denies this and insists that all she wants to do is return home. Agatha sneaks into the School for Boys with Sophie following her under an invisible cape to stop her from kissing Tedros. Agatha attempts to speak with Tedros, does, and almost kisses him but in the moment before they do, Tedros becomes paranoid about Sophie still being alive and able to seek revenge and starts raving. As they argue, Sophie hidden underneath a table in the room seizes the opportunity and shoots a spell between them. Agatha thinks Tedros attacked her and Tedros thinks Agatha attacked him and they both start fighting. Agatha then flees convinced Tedros is evil. She goes back to the school for good where Sophie is waiting for her, pretending not to have known a thing. Eventually, it is decided that one of the girls must become a boy to integrate into the School for Boys to steal the Storian. Sophie is chosen and integrates into the boys' school. Soon Sophie's name as a boy is Fillip. Fillip and Tedros have problems at first, but soon, Fillip is protecting Tedros. Then they become the best of friends. Filip confesses to Tedros that he (Sophie) would do anything to see his (her) mother again. Tedros says he wouldn't want to see his, because his dad (King Arthur) sent out a warrant for her head (she had cheated on King Arthur with Sir Lancelot), and when he turns 16, he'd have to honor that warrant.

Then later in the forest at the Trial by Tale Agatha is hiding when Fillip comes with Tedros. Soon, Agatha sees that Tedros leans in to kiss Filip, but Agatha only sees their lips almost touch. She blames "Filip." As the three argue, suddenly, the spell wears off and Filip turns back into Sophie. Tedros is confused and angry, but then, the new "School for Girl" teacher Evelyn Sader, sister of August Sader, has her butterflies fly off trees as they carry the Storian and Evelyn to the trio. The New Dean brings out Sophie and Agatha's fairy tale book and lets the Storian write. Agatha and Tedros kiss because Evelyn made Sophie have symptoms. As the Storian is about to finish writing the end but the dean stops the Storian. Evelyn conjures the School Master's ghost and her butterflies turn red from being blue. Sophie kisses the ghost and as it becomes the School Master, the School Master kills Evelyn and sends Agatha home. The School Master tries to kill Tedros, but just before that happens, Agatha grabs Tedros and takes him with her, and the two schools become a malevolent School for Evil together. For now, as it says, their wishes were granted.

The Last Ever After

Three weeks following the events of 'A World Without Princes', both schools have fallen under the rule of the returned School Master, with the original School for Evil becoming the 'School for Old Evil' and the School for Good becoming the 'School for New Evil'. Still, the change is all but complete as the School Master, named Rafal, still has to 'marry' Sophie and ultimately start his campaign to destroy Good. Though hesitating, but afraid she might be forever alone and taking into account Agatha and Tedros' "betrayals" for ignoring her pleas for help, Sophie accepts the proposal and becomes a teacher for the School for New Evil, but the Storian still doesn't accept this as a 'happy ending'. This starts a countdown in which the sun grows weaker each passing day, and when the final dusk settles, it'll mean the end of all the fairytale world.

Meanwhile, Agatha and Tedros, back in Gavaldon, attempt to remain in hiding and reconcile, but are forced to escape when the people of Gavaldon tries executing them both for all the miseries she and Sophie previously caused. Agatha's mother Callis sacrifices herself to buy time for both to escape to the Endless Woods. Arriving there, they're rescued by Professor Uma, whom explains that Rafal's return has allowed the return of old villains as undead and that the remaining original heroes (Mainly Cinderella, Peter Pan, Hansel and Gretel and Pinocchio) are formed in a League of Thirteen, led by Merlin to survive against the Rafal's assaults, clearly seeking to alter the original fairytales, starting with the murder of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Rapunzel and Tom Thumb. So much the League as Agatha and Tedros are in constant disagreement.

Agatha and Tedros, despite a rocky beginning, eventually are assigned by Merlin to destroy Rafal's wedding ring, which keeps so much his sustenance as his 'empire' alive, but under the strict condition that Sophie must be the one to deliver the killing blow, that can only be performed with the Excalibur that Tedros lost in the day of Rafal's return. They realize the Excalibur is being guarded in the School for Old Evil, and thus Agatha sets to recover the sword while Tedros, on Agatha's insistence, sets out to 'rescue' Sophie and try to convince her to give up her marriage with Rafal. Aided by Sophie's former friends Hester, Anadil, Dot and Hort, they manage to infiltrate the School (Using the same gender-swapping potion that allowed Sophie to turn into Filip, previously) and perform both tasks as they then run away, with Rafal mysteriously allowing them to escape.

Merlin guides Agatha, Sophie and Tedros to Avalon, where Tedros discovers Guinevere and Lancelot still alive. Despite his initial grudges against both, he slow and painfully comes to forgive them as he learns further of Arthur's previous paranoic behavior and domineering issues. Agatha, on her part, becomes willing to give up her love for Tedros so Sophie can have him, instead, more driven by her reluctance in becoming the future Queen of Camelot than by her personal feelings. Despite both's best efforts, however, the plan ultimately fails when Sophie and Tedros kiss, and both realize they were never meant for each other. Believing she was used all along, she returns to Rafal, accepting her place by his side and becoming the Queen of Evil. Against her wills, Agatha is chosen as the Queen of Good, as both parties prepare for war, whose final battle is to take place in Gavaldon, still untouched because of an energy barrier fed by people's beliefs in fairytales, but that's weakning due to Rafal's altered stories, and is being targeted for reasons unknown. During training, Agatha also learns of Cinderella's tragic past, as she was forced into a fairytale she never asked to have, and how this alienated her to the stepsisters which were her friends, in spite of Cinderella's stepmother.

The battle takes place in the Stymph Woods close to Gavaldon, which Merlin manages to sway all the School's students against Rafal and Sophie with Lady Lesso's aid, having been revealed as the traitor trying to undermine Evil's efforts. Sophie, with Agatha in hot pursuit, tracks Lady Lesso down to the School for Old Evil, whom discloses her that Evil was never meant to destroy Good or vice-versa, but instead become a harmonic part of it. She and Agatha also discover the corpse of Sophie's mother Vanessa and the tale behind both her and Callis, in which Sophie and Agatha discover to be twin sisters, explaining the inseperable bond between them. Still, while Agatha sees this as a chance to heal wounds, Sophie remains still, determined to keep her union with Rafal by any means.

The battle ultimately shifts in Evil's favor as Cinderella falls in combat and the barrier protecting Gavaldon fails, allowing Rafal to invade. However, instead of destroying the town, he takes Sophie's father's Stefan for execution by Sophie's own hands, as a 'final sacrifice for love' and Evil's ultimate victory. In a last, desperate effort, Agatha reminds Sophie of her friendship, making her realize she already had a happy ending of her own, and was risking destroying it. Sophie has a change of heart at the last second and deceives Rafal, destroying his wedding ring and ultimately killing him, saving everyone at the nick of time. Full of regret, Sophie, Agatha and Stefan make amends, with Sophie finally letting Stefan have a family of his own, as she and Agatha pull back to the Endless Woods. There, they also give their farewell to Lady Lesso in her dying breath, fatally stabbed by her former son Aric, killed in action.

Lesso and Cinderella are promptly buried and everything seems to return to normal, with Tedros, Agatha and Sophie meaning to head together to Camelot, when Sophie discovers she was chosen by Lady Lesso to be her successor as Dean for the School of Evil. Agatha and Tedros depart alone to Camelot, with Sophie fully embracing her newfound role, free, satisfied and content with herself, despite feeling a bit jealous but still remarking "I am me".

Books

  • The School for Good and Evil (2013)
  • A World Without Princes (2014)
  • The Last Ever After (2015)
  • The Ever Never Handbook (2016)
  • Quests for Glory (2017)
  • Reception

    Critical reception for the first book in the series has been positive, and the book has received praise from The Guardian and the Miami Herald.

    Awards

  • Waterstone's Children's Book Prize for Best Fiction for 5-12 (2014, nominee for The School for Good and Evil)
  • References

    The School for Good and Evil Wikipedia