Pennyroyal Academy

TITLE: Pennyroyal Academy
AUTHOR: M.A. Larson
RELEASE DATE: October 2014
PUBLISHER: G.P. Putnam's Sons
PAGES: 314 pages
SERIES: The Pennyroyal Academy series
GENRE: Fantasy
OVERALL RATING: 2/5
APPROPRIATE AGE: grades 5-8 

SUMMARY: A girl without a name is rescued from a witch in the dark forest by a handsome knight named Remington. He brings her to the Pennyroyal Academy, where she enlists as a Third Year Cadet in the hopes of one day becoming a princess. But she soon realizes that there is more to becoming a princess than ball gowns and tiaras. These princesses are trained to defeat the evil witches of the world. Can a girl with no name, no family, and a big secret really become a princess?

FAVORITE QUOTE: "Pennyroyal Academy: Seeking bold, courageous youths to become tomorrow's princesses and knights. Blood restrictions lifted - Come one, come all!" (Larson, 14)
   

WHAT I LIKED/DIDN'T LIKE: I chose to read this book because every year I plan to read the entire TLA Lone Star book list . This wasn't exactly one of my first picks, but it became available in the library and I figured I would go ahead and knock it out. Every year, it seems that YART (TLA's Young Adult Round Table) chooses a fairy tale retelling to add to the list. And every year it's the exact same story. As I read this story, I felt like I had just read the exact same book. I kept comparing it to The School of Good and Evil by Soman Chainani (2013). There is a good princess, a bad witch, usually a boy that they are fighting over, good beats evil, the end! 

READALIKES: The School of Good and Evil by Soman Chainani, 

SERIES UPDATE: Book 2: The Shadow Cadets of Pennyroyal Academy due out June 14, 2016

BOOK TRAILER: 

Winter

TITLE: Winter
AUTHOR: Marissa Meyer
RELEASE DATE: November 2015
PUBLISHER: Feiwel and Friends
PAGES: 827 pages
SERIES: The Lunar Chronicles
GENRE: Science Fiction, Fantasy
OVERALL RATING: 4/5
APPROPRIATE AGE: grades 7+

SUMMARY: In this fourth and final installment of the Lunar Chronicles, Winter is the stepdaughter of Levana, the queen of Luna. She refuses to use her Lunar gift to manipulate people after she, herself, was manipulated (by the queen) to create three hideous scars on her face. But those scars do not keep the Lunar people from completely adoring Princess Winter, and this upsets Queen Levana, who we know will do anything to get her way. 

All of the characters of the Lunar Chronicles come together to defeat the evil Queen Levana and help Cinder reclaim her throne to Luna. But will they make it in time to stop Levana's wedding to Prince Kai and the coronation to the new Queen of the East Commonwealth? 

FAVORITE QUOTE: "My point is that I am going to figure this out, like I always do. First, we're going to find a way to get into Artemisia. We're going to find Cress and rescue Cinder and Wolf. We're going to overthrow Levana, and by the stars above, we are going to make Cinder a queen so she can pay us a lot of money from her royal coffers and we can all retire very rich and very alive, got it?" 

WHAT I LIKED: I loved each of the characters and how they all come together in this final book in the Lunar Chronicles series. I will admit that I absolutely loved Cinder, the first book in the series. Scarlet and Cress were good fillers, but I didn't LOVE them. However, book four, Winter, really brought it all together. It did not disappoint. 

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: I'm trying hard to find a way to explain what I did not like about this book without giving away major spoilers. If you have read Marissa Meyer's novella, Fairest, which is Levana's backstory, then you know what happened to the queen as a child. I don't like how the story of Winter refers to this and how it brings about the downfall of Levana. Are people really that superficial? That's all I'm going to say about the subject, if my explanation didn't make any sense, I apologize, but come back and reread it after you have finished the novel. 

READALIKES: The Shadow Queen by C.J. Redwine

SERIES UPDATE: Stars Above: A Lunar Chronicles Collection due out February 2016

BOOK TRAILER: 

The School for Good and Evil

TITLE: The School for Good and Evil
AUTHOR: Soman Chainani
RELEASE DATE: May 2013
PUBLISHER: Harper
PAGES: 488 pages
SERIES: Book 1 in The School for Good and Evil trilogy (Book 2: A World Without Princes, Book 3: The Last Ever After)
GENRE: Fantasy
OVERALL RATING: 4/5
APPROPRIATE AGE: grades 5+

SUMMARY: Sophie is the picture perfect rendition of a fairy tale princess, Agatha is the complete opposite. But every day, Sophie makes the trek to the dark graveyard to visit Agatha for her good deed of the day. Why would she do this? Because every four years the School Master visits Gavaldon and kidnaps two children, one for the School of Good and one for the School of Evil. While other parents are locking their children away, Sophie is leaving treats on her windowsill to welcome the School Master. But when Sophie is taken away with Agatha by a dark shadow, she knows there must be a terrible mistake when she is dropped into the School for Evil. But how can she prove to the School Master that she is the princess that belongs in the School of Good?

FAVORITE QUOTE: "In the forest primeval, A school for good and evil, Two towers like twin heads, One for the pure, One for the wicked, Try to escape you'll always fail, the only way out is, through a fairy tale."

WHAT I LIKED: I loved the world-building in this book. All of the descriptions of each room of the castle, the differences between the School for Good and the School for Evil. The descriptions of the characters are amazing. The black and white drawings throughout the book only improved my imagination. 

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: The complete cliff hanger that is the ending of this book. I'm talking stop in the middle of a sentence, what just happened, I can't get book number two fast enough!

READALIKES: Ever After High series by Shannon Hale

MOVIE RELEASE: In Development from Universal Studios

BOOK TRAILER: