A World Without Princes (The School for Good and Evil #2)

Author: Soman Chainani

Rating: 2/5

Agatha and Sophie don’t exactly like their Happily Ever After so they return to the School, except it’s not pitting Good against Evil anymore. Rather, it’s Girls versus Boys. How fun.

Spoiler ahead.

Detailed Summary

Agatha and Sophie have escaped the School for Good and Evil and are back at Gavaldon, living out their Happily Ever After. But Agatha’s all like, “Did I make the wrong choice?” and, “Tedros is really attractive.” So during Stefan (Sophie’s father) and Honora’s wedding, Agatha wishes for Tedros and then Sophie gets assaulted by arrows. The village Elders decide to get rid of Sophie because she’s a witch but Agatha goes after her and promises Stefan that she’ll bring Sophie back. Agatha chases after Sophie and the two end up at the School when they follow butterflies except rather than being one for Good and Evil, it’s for Boys and Girls. Agatha and Sophie had shown the princesses that they didn’t need boys. But Lady Tesso and Dovey (the Fairy Godmother person) tell Agatha that she needs to do mouth to mouth with Tedros to end their story. Also, Tedros is the School Master for the boys’ school. So that’s great. There’s a new dean named Evelyn Sader. She’s August Sader’s half-sister without any powers. She manipulates Sophie and makes her seem like a witch again. Hester, Anadil and Dot help Agatha get to Tedros. She does but Sophie follows by becoming invisible–she uses this snakeskin coat or something–and just when Agatha is about to kiss Tedros, Sophie does magic, sending a pink glow, and the two think the other is attacking them. Also, Tedros wants to kill Sophie but Agatha’s like NOOO. So Agatha and Tedros get really mad and storm off. Agatha thinks she was wrong to doubt Sophie and is ashamed but damn, Tedros is so attractive that she can’t stop thinking about him. Plus Lesso and Dovey are all up in her face trying to get her to end her story. Dean Sader keeps an eye on everything with her blue butterflies which is kinda creepy and unsettling. Also, there’s no privacy at all.

The two schools decide that there’s going to be a Trial, girls versus boys. Professor Yuba who’s a male gnome(?) has a special potion that allows you to change gender. Sophie drinks it so she can look for the Storian in the School for Boys. She becomes Filip and is Tedros’ cellmate. Tedros is no longer Dean, there’s this other guy so he’s subjected to punishment and stuff. The two become good friends. Hort helps Filip beat everyone else, hoping that Filip will choose Hort for the trial but instead, Filip chooses Tedros. Meanwhile, Dean Sader is showing everyone a version of history. The night before, the tortoise librarian had given Agatha this special history book but it didn’t have much information. Then in Dean Sader’s manipulated version, August Sader comes to Agatha and shows her what had happened: Evelyn had worked at the School for Evil and wanted to be the School Master’s True Love but he rejected her, saying she had to prove it or something. Anyway, the trial starts. The two (Filip and Tedros) enter the Trial and Aric, this other guy, is found killing Yara, this girl who worked for Dean Sader. Yara becomes Tristan who said he liked the School for Girls and wanted to embrace his femininity. Filip and Tedros are about to kiss when Agatha finds them. Agatha, at this point, has realised that the pink bolt was actually Sophie. Filip is turning back into Sophie and Tedros is super confused. Lady Lesso shows up and her doing so breaks the barrier and there’s all-out war. Evelyn Sader comes with the Storian and forces Sophie to have witch symptoms. Agatha chooses Tedros and kisses him but before the Storian can write “The End,” Evelyn stops it and gets Sophie to wish for her mother who turns into the School Master (because Sophie wants someone to love her). Tedros and Agatha vanish to Gavaldon. And the School for Evil and the School Master both return. Oh, and Evelyn is killed.

Plot and Pacing: So, I’ve been avoiding this review for a while now for two reasons. One, I’ve got my IB exams which are slowly sucking the life out of me, and two, I really did not like this book. If you read my review of the first book, you’ll know that I was REALLY confused about how I felt. My review was like a garbled mess of a thing. But now, I have a definite opinion on this series and I’m afraid it’s not a happy one.

I’m really NOT enjoying these books and it’s really annoying me. I wanted something light and fluffy obscuring something dark and deep. And this series supposedly is meant to accomplish that but I’m the only one who’s not feeling it. The book had its merits.

When Agatha and Sophie chased after the blue butterfly, I was very much reminded of Ron Weasley saying, “Why couldn’t it be ‘follow the butterflies?'” Well, Ron, turns out butterflies can be quite deadly. I loved Sophie being Filip and getting all buddy-buddy with Tedros. And let’s face it, Tristan’s arc was very pretty damn cool. But everything else was just meh. I thought the premise was really interesting. A world without princes is a fine world indeed. I liked that the princesses learnt to be independent and fend for themselves. In the first book, they were taught very stereotypical princess-y things and I remember feeling a bit put off by that. So I really liked the whole feminism thing. But it’s taken to a whole new level. I don’t think boys should be completely eliminated. I just think it’s important that everyone, regardless of gender, should learn to be independent and have opinions and all that. But Lady Tesso and the Dovey woman kept egging Agatha to kiss Tedros and all I could think was, So much for the feminist ending of the first book.

And in the end, the School Master returns and I was shaking my head at that point. I won’t say it was predictable but I was surprised at Sophie’s idiocy. It was so obvious that Evelyn Sader was using her to drive a wedge. You would think that she would have learnt by now that things don’t just magically end up wonderfully. Also, Agatha has to choose between Sophie and Tedros? Again? What the hell does that even signify? Chainani seems to be saying that you can’t have both a boyfriend and a best friend. Last I heard, the two could definitely coexist.

The book was incredibly slow. I don’t particularly like Chainani’s writing style. Everything seems to drag on and on and on and random things keep happening to the characters. There’s no coherency.

I’m really disappointed with this series because it has so much potential but everything’s just flopped. I don’t know why so many people love this series so much.

Characters: By the end of the first book, I ended up kind of liking Sophie and Agatha. Now, I’m back to disliking both of them. And Tedros too. And really everyone except August Sader because August Sader is precious. 🙂 Okay, I had a lot of issues with the characters. I thought all the characters were thirteen while reading this which freaked me out because I used to watch MLP when I was that age, not hunt for True Love. Turns out, they’re about fifteen so that made me feel a teensy bit better.

I liked that Agatha doubted her choice at the start of the book. I mean, I guess getting close to a boy can be quite special. And I had a feeling that she’d be questioning her choice for the rest of her life. However, I didn’t like how Chainani turned this on its end and went waaay too far with it. By the time she met Tedros, I was ready to strangle her because Agatha was just so…sjklslkjfsdfjdsjf. There’s no word for it! It’s like, okay, you’ve wished for your damn prince, now just KISS HIM! But nope, stuff has to get even more complicated. She could have done a better job of convincing Tedros is all I’m saying.

And TEDROS! Damn it, what an annoying character! I understand that he had a traumatic relationship with his parents. His mother, Guinevere left his father for Lancelot and didn’t even say goodbye, and then his father died shortly after. I understand that this can be a horrible incident. BUT. In what way does it justify all of his horrible actions in the book? His desire to kill Agatha and Sophie, his supposed distrust towards women, his wish to be loved for more than his appearance–everything’s linked to his mother leaving him. I didn’t like that because rather than making him three-dimensional, it flattened the life out of him. As if his whole life and personality were born out of that ONE event. I really loved the part where Tedros and Filip were bonding over wanting to be loved and I was positively squealing when the two were this close to kissing. Sophie being a boy somehow felt right. And I would totally dig Tedros being bisexual. That gender-swapping thing brought out a lot of Tedros’ insecurities like not knowing whether he could really trust someone to love him for himself rather than his insanely good looks.

Speaking of Filip, Sophie’s selfishness really got to me. In the first book, she kind of redeems herself and tries to become Good. But here, she reverts to her old ways so the first book really had no point. Also, she seemed positively obsessed with Agatha. I really hope Chainani doesn’t make this some kind of weird love triangle where Agatha has to choose between Tedros and Sophie, Sophie has to choose between Agatha and Tedros, and Tedros has to choose between Agatha and Sophie. Gosh, how would that even work? But the third book seems to be heading in that direction so only time will tell.

There was an inconsistency in the book. So the librarian is a male tortoise in the Girl’s School but males weren’t allowed. So how did he get to stay? Also, Evelyn Sader was a pretty cool villain. And Tristan! How could I forget about Tristan? In the first book, he seems to have a thing for Tedros but is unable to fully embrace it. In this book, it seems as though he may have been trans-gender and I LOVED that. Too bad he died.

Writing Style: I didn’t enjoy it much. And reading the third book, I’ve realised that I’m kind of glazing over some of the sentences because it’s not catching my fancy. Is it weird that I really miss Foundation? I miss reading Asimov’s stuff.

One of my friends (hi, Petra!), caught me out for reading this book when I told her it kind of sucked. I had said in a previous book review that I wouldn’t finish a series or book if I didn’t like it but I can’t help it! I’ve reverted to my old ways much like Sophie. Shall we blame the book? Social Cognitive Learning Theory? Let’s blame the book. 🙂