Flunked (Jen Calonita)

Flunked
The Fairy Tale Reform School series, Book 1
Jen Calonita
Sourcebooks Young Readers
Fiction, MG Fantasy
*** (Okay)

DESCRIPTION: When the four princesses of Enchantasia defeated the villains and found their happily-ever-after endings, things were supposed to be... well, happy ever after. Their former enemies even turned over new leaves and started the Fairy Tale Reform School, where young miscreants are sent to learn morals and good manners lest they follow the path of evil. But nothing's been quite right in the land since then - especially not for young Gillian. Her father crafted the famous glass slippers that let Ella enchant her Prince Charming at the ball, but now fairy godmother magic has nearly put him out of work. Gilly has to resort to stealing to see it to it that her family has enough to eat, which is how she found herself sentenced to Fairy Tale Reform School herself. She won't let her guard down, determined to break out as soon as possible... but soon finds herself in over her head as a great danger looms, one that could doom not just her fellow students but the whole of Enchantasia.

REVIEW: On the surface, Flunked looks like any number of similar middle-grade stories on the market: a modern-flavored riff on classic fairy tale tropes with a cast of plucky young heroes, set in a magical school with talking mirrors and mermaid classmates and halls that rearrange themselves at random. Beneath the surface... it still looks like any number of similar stories.
It starts with some potential, hinting that the "happily ever after" created by the princesses' victories is leading to stagnation and an increasingly authoritarian rule, stamping out any hint of rebellion or nonconformity (even though it's almost always the rebels and nonconformists who prevail in fairy tales.) It even touches on industrialization crippling the economy, as shown by Gilly's family starving when cheaper automation renders shoemaking obsolete almost overnight. But that potential quickly falls by the wayside when Gilly gets to the Fairy Tale Reform School (or FTRS.) From then on, it loses focus to drag in elements from Harry Potter and other popular magic academy tales, plus large scoops of "not quite Disney so don't sue" modern popular iterations of familiar stories. The very concept of the Fairy Tale Reform School starts to look increasingly ridiculous when it's clear that at least one professor (Harlow, formerly the Evil Queen of Snow White fame) is nothing like reformed; handing a bunch of potential apprentices to a group of dangerous teachers, with not one check or balance to ensure their power won't be abused, is beyond fairy tale naive. And, of course, in Harry Potter tradition, Gilly spends much more time spying on suspicious instructors than actually attending her classes, which seem rather random and sketchily thought out. Characters aren't any deeper than the paper they're printed on (or the eInk they're rendered in, for us Kindle readers), and the plot tends to clunk and jerk along, dragging Gilly with it; she's generally too oblivious to obvious red flags to do much more than react to events, rather than figure things out and get ahead of them. And the princesses, for all that they're supposed to be strong and intelligent rulers, are even more helpless than the usual damsels in distress, mere objects to be admired and endangered.
A much younger reader, one with fewer similar titles under their proverbial belt, might be more entertained (and less put off by the weird, incongruous mix of fairy tale word and modern innovations like T-shirts and jeans, not to mention frequent exclamations of "Dude!" from trolls and fairies - which works for movies like Shrek but comes across as just sketchy worldbuilding here), but I've read better fairy tale riffs, unfortunately.

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