Representation: Implied minor Asian character
Trigger warnings: Blood depiction, physical assault and injury, death of people, sexism, slavery mentioned
Score: Six points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

Man, this was worse than the first book, so much so that I'm a little disheartened, the first book was alright and I hoped the second one would be a much needed improvement to the series. It wasn't. It's highly unlikely that I'll read the third and final instalment in the trilogy since it's more than 600 pages, and I don't think it's worth my time. It starts (more like continues) with the main characters Sophie and Agatha and after the events of the first book the School for Good and School for Evil don't exist anymore. Instead there are new gender segregated schools (Really? They were co-ed and now this. Come on.) called the School for Girls and the School for Boys. More flaws surfaced as I read through more of the narrative. First, I struggled to connect to any of the characters, second is the pacing, since the books I read recently were all slow paced (and sometimes that can let me explore character dynamics or other aspects of the novel but if the characters aren't that well written, what's the point of the slow pacing? I don't get it. It doesn't work here.) The second half of the story had nothing much happening and it fizzled out in the end. Shame. At least the bonus content (of which there were 50 pages) were intriguing enough for me to read and were better than all 430 pages of the book combined. ( )

Sophie and Agatha are back home but home isn’t exactly what they wanted. Agatha secretly wishes for an alternate ending and her wish is heard. The girls are swept back to the School for Good and Evil but when they get there, nothing is as it once was. Sophie and Agatha’s happy ever after showed all the other girls that they didn’t need a Prince to find their happy ending and now the schools have become Girls vs. Boys. The girls are on a mission to set things right and make things normal again but will anything ever be normal in the School for Good and Evil?

Book one, The School For Good and Evil, was the book that surprised me the most last year. I’ve never been a huge fan of 9-12 books besides the obvious Harry Potter and Rick Riordan’s The Lightening Thief but these books blew me away. In fact, The School for Good and Evil is my #1 hand-selling book at work. When I had first read it we were constantly selling out because I just couldn’t stop raving about it. All too often books will not be able to live up to their predecessor and I was extremely worried before starting that A World Without Princes would be one of those. Thankfully, it wasn’t. It may not have been better than the first one but I absolutely adored this one as well. Where the first book I loved Agatha and wasn’t a big fan of Sophie, A World Without Princes gave a closer look at the development of Sophie and made her a character I felt more for. While her actions are still not right they are just misguided because she’s so desperate and scared to be alone. Sophie continues to turn into the ‘villain’ that the storybooks require. Overall, A World Without Princes was a stellar sequel and I look forward to what Chainani brings next!
( )

I like Sophie better than Agatha actually.

So I'm going to wait for Book 3 to make a final verdict.
Because so far the series is a mixed bag of murky deeply conflicted feelings on my side.
Some good, excellent things. Some groan-inducing things.
Surprisingly mostly good, comparatively speaking.

Waiting on Book 3. ( )

Continuing saga of Sophie and Agatha, whose happily ever after is tested and found lacking.
Wishes made bring them back to the School for Good and Evil, where they must once again decide on their happily ever after. ( )

3 stars.
It was ok, I somewhat liked it, but this book was a very weird book. I did like how the ending of book 1 was SPOILER:
Agatha and Sophie leave the world behind so they could be together
END OF SPOILER


The ending spelled girl power and sisters before misters. Though I was a teeny bit disappointed with not being able to come back to the world, this happened. First of all, this was weird reverse sexism stuff because the schools were now girls and boys. Girls were portrayed as superior. Agatha was not as good, she was resenting Sophie because she couldn't see her true love (she's 12????) Sophie messes things up and the ending is almost exactly the same with a little change ( )