the scandalous sisterhood of prickwillow place by julie berry

Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish). This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. 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. The young ladies are charming and their problem-solving ingenious, though the epithets used to describe them-it is never “Roberta,” always “Dear Roberta”-get old very quickly.ĭroll farce yields to intriguing mystery, leaving the seams between them showingĬhainani 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. A third of the way through the novel, the breakneck shenanigans abruptly settle, becoming merely the backdrop of a fairly classic drawing-room mystery. Plackett, Disgraceful Mary Jane initiates the garden gravedigging, and Pocked Louise helpfully adopts a puppy. All seems lost until Smooth Kitty asks the others, what if they just don’t tell the authorities about their headmistress’s untimely demise? What follows is classic farce, as the young ladies spend the rest of that evening desperately hiding the corpses and their headmistress’s absence from an unprecedented stream of callers. Plackett’s death, surely they will all be sent back home to their dreadful families and shunted off to far worse schools. Once they tell the authorities about Mrs. All of the seven students at Saint Ethelreda’s, from Dull Martha to Dour Elinor, are horrified at the notion of their inevitable separation. Aldous Godding choke on their veal and fall over, dead as a pair of unpleasant doornails.

It’s an ordinary Sunday dinner at Saint Ethelreda’s School for Young Ladies until Mrs. When an overbearing headmistress and her odious brother drop dead, seven Victorian schoolgirls decide to run their school without adult interference.

The scandalous sisterhood of prickwillow place by julie berry