Quite amusing. At times really funny, but I am not sure I bought the characters. The good one seemed to be too sceptical to be this naive, and the bad one made a choice in the end that didn't seem in character. And despite the fact that the system was flawed, it seems to me the selection process for the good guys should have been better. I did like the discussion of good and evil in general. The problem was that there aren't too many characters to root for. The bad guys were, well, bad, and the good guys were mostly vacuous morons who care most about looks. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. It was a prefect fairytale story. I thought it was a tad on the longer side but that was not a bad thing. I really enjoyed both main characters and how the sides of good and evil and who is that and who is not changed throughout the novel. I loved the fairytale lore that was created for this story. It was a complicated story that lost me at points but i really liked the messages and the characters of this story. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. It was a prefect fairytale story. I thought it was a tad on the longer side but that was not a bad thing. I really enjoyed both main characters and how the sides of good and evil and who is that and who is not changed throughout the novel. I loved the fairytale lore that was created for this story. It was a complicated story that lost me at points but i really liked the messages and the characters of this story. ( )

Independent reading level: 3+
Awards: Waterstone's Children's Book Prize

Representation: N/A?
Trigger warnings: N/A?
Score: Six points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

Very chaotic, I did not enjoy this book at all, it is nowhere near the level of the Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling, or the Keeper of the Lost Cities series, by Shannon Messenger, go read those instead for a better story about a fantasy boarding school. It starts with the main characters Sophie and Agatha and Sophie wanted to be put on the Good side whereas Agatha wanted to be on the Evil side but much to their surprise they got the opposite of what they wanted which is a cheap way to pull of a plot twist. This novel ultimately wasn't enjoyable because both sides of the school kept fighting over each other, and even started a war however at least that made the book more action-packed. The apparently "Good" side turned out to be just as bad as the Evil side because they wanted to kill them. The students also experienced harsh abuse in the school as well, such as the burning iron shoes and the failure system which I didn't like. There were flashes of good moments interspersed in this book however that did not do enough for me to put this above 3 stars. The two main characters were just unlikeable, underdeveloped and kept fighting over each other just like the rest of the school however now that I think about it that was the entire point of the story so there's that. ( )