What Is Good And Evil?

Just finished a book that I picked up on a whim.  The cover was cool, the description sounded fun and the hardcover book would look great on my bookshelf so I decided to give it a go.  The book is called The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani and my feelings on the final outcome are mixed.  I'm gonna mix it up a bit and do less detailed synopsis so there will be less rambling to slog through, let me know if you like this better, or if you prefer a more in depth synopsis.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD.

Sophie is everything a princess should be, in fact she has been preparing all of her young life for the rare opportunity to become one. Agatha is the complete opposite, dreary, dark, and not into princes at all.  Both girls are spirited away to the either the School for Good or the School for Evil.  To everybody's amazement Sophie gets put in Evil and Agatha into Good.  This of course causes all kinds of problems as Sophie wants nothing more then to be pretty and be rescued by a prince, while Agatha just wants to go home. The girls find a way to talk to the mysterious School Master, who controls the school, and the magical pen that writes the children into the fairytales after they graduate from the school.  They are given some obscure riddle,

giving Agatha hope she can return home with her friend Sophie.  Through out the story Sophie tries to get Tedros, the most desired prince to fall in love with her to prove that she is Good, not Evil. Agatha thinking she is really Sophie's friend does her best to help her.  Sophie however does nothing but prove over and over how selfish she is, while Agatha continually tries to help and protect whenever she can.  Eventually Sophie's true inner Evil is revealed and all her beauty melts away to reveal her ugly Evil inner self, intent on destroying the school.  Agatha meanwhile has learned to love her inner beauty and won the heart of the fickle Tedros. It is also discovered that most of the students do not become Royalty, but many of them become loyal companions, or steadfast animals, or even props (think the the beanstalk, the pumpkin carriage and the birds that come when Cinderella calls).  It is also revealed that Evil never wins and all the Evil students have to look foward to is a hopefully glorious death.  After a full on student against student fight it revealed that the School Master has set all of this up to find his pure Evil mate, and that person is Sophie.  Sophie decides that she does not want this and in some sort of twist takes an arrow meant for Agatha, finally proving her friendship and Goodness.  The story ends with the students...well something and then Agatha and Sophie dissolve into birds and fly away.

This book had a lot of promise, and in certain area's lived up to it, but over all I was left feeling a bit confused and meh.  The good.  I liked the idea of a fairy tale school, with various classes and rules. I liked the continual reference to various fairytales and the various students that ended up in them in various capacities.  I also liked at the end the idea that it was rarely fair to label a person as Good or Evil as most people are both. The book has some pretty sweet illustrations.  What didn't really do it for me was the over all mushiness of the plot, it was a bit hard to follow and took a long time to get anywhere.  When we finally get were we are going it didn't make any sense.  The ending was abrupt and just kind of happened, like the author had an idea in mind, but did not know how to make the transition from the story to the next idea.  I had a hard time trying to decide if Sophie was truly Evil, or had just grown up on fairy tales telling her what a
princess should be like and she was just doing what she thought she had to, to become one.  Agatha's transformation was much more believable, but pretty predictable. I hated how much being Good or Evil was based on looks, especially Sophie, who became more and more physically unattractive as she got Eviler, unlike Agatha who was precieved as prettier the Gooder she got.  I hate this because a) we have enough issues now a days without beauty and goodness being linked and b) some of the best villians out there are some of the best looking people out there.  The middle 2/3 of the book seemed repetitive, going over the same ground over and over again without a clear point, which made it drag a bit.  The world building could have been really cool, and the bit that was in there was done well, but I still feel like I know nothing about the world in this book.  Overall the book had a willy-nilly, mushed up feel to it, there was a lot of action that did not go anywhere, a lot of supposedly important questions that got posed that either did not get answered, or were brushed aside, and an ending that was not only random but made no sense at all.  There is a second book in this series and to be honest I am not sure if I'm gonna pick it up or not. I give this book 5 out of 10 magic glowing pinkies.
Is there such thing as pure good or pure evil in humans?  Do you think physical appearance is a good indicator of good and evil? What fairy tale object would you like to live your life as?