A mildly creepy premise, lots of clueless adults, and teens who are more pranksters than toughs keep the tone light.
A reform school’s rehab program turns out to have a disturbing biological component in this satiric series opener.
When one impulsive act—well, OK, he stole a subway train—lands him in dusty, decrepit Munchem Academy alongside his bad seed big brother, Carter, undersized Mattie Larimore soon discovers the tried-and-true technique of ingratiating himself with the grown-ups isn’t going to secure him an early release. No, it seems there are plans afoot to boost the school’s reputation by producing exact but eager-to-please clones of all the school’s resident bullies and punks. Seeing sudden, bizarre behavior changes in Carter, Mattie embarks on a determined search for his original sibling that takes him from the teachers’ lounge to a high-tech lab beneath a nearby mausoleum. Eventually plans for a complicated denouement collapse, but that’s OK because a) Carter turns out to be not such a bad brother, and b) Mattie comes to realize that, particularly after some editing of the evil Headmaster Rooney’s memories, Munchem isn’t such a terrible place after all. Aside from the two Larimores, whose mother is Dominican, the cast isn’t particularly racially diverse, but Mattie does acquire as allies Eliot and Caroline, squabbling adopted sibs with distinct and special abilities who will, the pseudonymous “Bolivar” assures readers, be his future sidekicks. Stay tuned.
A mildly creepy premise, lots of clueless adults, and teens who are more pranksters than toughs keep the tone light. (Science fiction/suspense. 11-13)Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-5358-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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Ultimately more than a little full of itself, but well-stocked with big themes, inventively spun fairy-tale tropes, and...
Good has won every fairy-tale contest with Evil for centuries, but a dark sorcerer’s scheme to turn the tables comes to fruition in this ponderous closer.
Broadening conflict swirls around frenemies Agatha and Sophie as the latter joins rejuvenated School Master Rafal, who has dispatched an army of villains from Capt. Hook to various evil stepmothers to take stabs (literally) at changing the ends of their stories. Meanwhile, amid a general slaughter of dwarves and billy goats, Agatha and her rigid but educable true love, Tedros, flee for protection to the League of Thirteen. This turns out to be a company of geriatric versions of characters, from Hansel and Gretel (in wheelchairs) to fat and shrewish Cinderella, led by an enigmatic Merlin. As the tale moves slowly toward climactic battles and choices, Chainani further lightens the load by stuffing it with memes ranging from a magic ring that must be destroyed and a “maleficent” gown for Sophie to this oddly familiar line: “Of all the tales in all the kingdoms in all the Woods, you had to walk into mine.” Rafal’s plan turns out to be an attempt to prove that love can be twisted into an instrument of Evil. Though the proposition eventually founders on the twin rocks of true friendship and family ties, talk of “balance” in the aftermath at least promises to give Evil a fighting chance in future fairy tales. Bruno’s polished vignettes at each chapter’s head and elsewhere add sophisticated visual notes.
Ultimately more than a little full of itself, but well-stocked with big themes, inventively spun fairy-tale tropes, and flashes of hilarity. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-210495-3
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2015
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