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.

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. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. Both characters are well developed, and Warga skillfully handles both their delicate, emotional friendship and larger subjects of grief and gun violence.Ĭhainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.Įvery 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. Throughout, Quinn struggles with her guilt and a secret she’s keeping while Cora struggles with her last interaction with Mabel, wondering whether she can still be friends with Quinn, and understanding the Lebanese heritage she knows relatively little about but that shapes people’s perceptions of her. Eventually the two begin to work together on a time-travel project, seeking a wormhole that will allow them to travel back in time and prevent the shooting.

On Cora’s 12th birthday, she finds a box on her front porch: Quinn believes she has discovered a way to fix everything, but she needs Cora’s help. The story unfolds in chapters that alternate between the two girls’ viewpoints Quinn’s chapters open with movingly honest letters to Parker. While Cora’s family grieves openly and makes sure she sees a therapist regularly, Quinn’s parents fight constantly over who is to blame for what Parker did. Quinn McCauley, who is White, is coping with the emotional fallout of her brother Parker’s life-changing actions. She is mourning the loss of her older sister, Mabel, who died in a school shooting. Two best friends haven’t spoken in the year since the tragedy that upended their lives.Ĭora Hamed lives with her Lebanese father and White American maternal grandmother her mother left years earlier.

Jasmine warga the shape of thunder