Ah, yes, the first in what will probably be a continual string
of sequels in several fantasy series I may half-regret starting somewhere down
the road. Sequels are generally a tricky business, especially since they’re
almost always part of a trilogy, tetralogy or so on. First books have the
benefit of introducing a world and its characters while not being obligated to
explain everything. The second installment has to both expand on the setup in a
meaningful way and not be a thinly
veined rehash of its predecessor. Then again, many second installments are revered
as the best part of a series because they can dare to push the heroes to their
limits and close on a dark ending. A
World Without Princes delivers a blend of all of the above, sometimes to
its own detriment.
The story continues closely from where the first book left
off: Agatha and Sophie are back in their village, now made famous by their
fairy tale. For the few months, Sophie basks in the fame while Agatha just
wants everything to be normal again. When their fame dies down, Sophie grows restless
for attention while being overshadowed by changes in her family life—her father
is getting married to her dead mother’s best friend, who Sophie suspects her
father had an affair with even while Sophie’s mother was alive. Agatha tries to
comfort Sophie and be content with their Happily Ever After. Too bad she can’t
make herself forget Tedros, the prince she started falling for back at the
School for Good and Evil. As the rising tension suggests (along with the book’s
title), events propel the girls from their village back to the school—only this
time their exit is triggered by one of them.
It’s not exactly stated that the school deems girls Good and
boys Evil, but the semi-sentient castle does dictate this change by kicking the
princes out of Good and the witches out of Evil. This is the result of Sophie
and Agatha’s fairy tale becoming so popular among readers that they don’t want
traditional “hero rescues maiden” stories anymore. It’s not just the school
enforcing this change, either. The new dean, Evelyn Sader, likes this
development and takes full advantage by indoctrinating the girls to think that
not only do they not need boys in their stories, but boys are inferior and
should become their slaves. While Agatha is by and large disturbed by this,
Sophie’s initial confusion over the loss of heteronormative fairy tales
dissolves when she learns that Tedros, the unofficial head of the Boys School,
wants to kill Sophie for taking Agatha away from him. The complex situation
only escalates when the two former deans of Good and Evil inform Agatha and
Sophie that the only way to restore balance to the Force—I mean to Good and
Evil—is for Agatha to kiss Tedros and restore the “normal” fairy tale endings.
There’s just one problem: if Agatha kisses Tedros, she and Sophie will be
forever separated because, in the world of fairy tales, only one person can be
your Happily Ever After. Apparently.
While many plot elements will feel familiar to readers of
the first book—this is a sequel, after all—Chainani plays with reversing
certain details to change the dynamics and stakes. Whereas in book one Agatha
only wanted to go home with Sophie, she’s now conflicted over whether she wants
to remain with Sophie or fulfill the princess trope with Tedros. We also see
Sophie at war with her “witchy” self, which this time around she’s more aware
of. She actively tries to be Good to ensure that Agatha stays with her. Without Princes makes the effort to
explore ideas from the first book while taking the story in its own direction.
That said, readers must be aware and prepared for the dangerous waters of
Chainani’s satirical approach to gender issues in fairy tales, and in fiction
on the whole.
To people who speak out more and more about gender
inequality or toxic views on gender roles, Without
Princes may feel like a slap in the face. A beautiful, domineering woman is
telling impressionable teenage girls that they don’t need men, and that men are
only good for slave labor and making babies. Is this how Chainani views
feminism? I doubt it; rather I think he may be portraying how anti-feminists think
feminism works. Unfortunately, that’s a question of interpretation. The only
evidence I can offer to defend Chainani is that, to start, his book series
centers on the complicated relationship between two complicated girls and how
they deal with traditional views on morality and gender in fairy tales. It’s their story, and it’s certainly a
feminist story. At the same time, though, it includes a boy, Tedros, as someone
who becomes part of that dynamic. Why? Well, fairy tales are all about crossing
thresholds, of transgressing the boundaries of the “familiar” or “safe”. For
Sophie and Agatha, a boy can be construed as a threat to their friendship and
an intrusion of the unknown, the “other”, which we’ve seen since the first
book. This time, Chanaini has just made the threat more imminent.
So when the story sets up Agatha with a dichotomy—a choice
between two people she loves—is the author unfairly perpetuating a long-held opposition
between men and women, friendship and romantic love? At first glance, yes, it’s
very unfair, and we can see the strain it puts on Agatha and Sophie
psychologically. That might well be Chainani’s point. Part of the problem is
that the narrative doesn’t suggest that there’s a third option. The focus is
almost entirely on trying to prevent the school from becoming a battleground.
Only about two-thirds through the book does this binary conflict get flipped on
its head: Sophie, in an effort to reclaim the Storian and restore the School to
Good and Evil sides and prevent war, takes a potion that turns her into a boy.
Her infiltration leads her to befriending the very person who wants to destroy
her. Only then do we see the boundaries of male and female start to crumble.
Tedros comes to see Sophie, or “Filip,” as a truer friend than Agatha, which
leads to a pretty awesome moment of irony. But the book’s finale isn’t allowed
to follow through on that irony; my guess is that Chainani is saving it for the
next book. I still consider that a flaw, even if it’s a flaw inherent to the
book’s function as a stepping stone in a continuing series.
My biggest complaint about how Chainani handles this satire
is Dean Sader’s role. Early on, I suspected that her motives for wanting to
elevate girls and destroy boys had to do with injustices she faced from her
male counterparts, including her deceased brother August Sader, who we met in book
one. She’s still portrayed as the villain in how she twists fairy tales that
change damsels in distress into their own badass heroes (hey, what’s wrong with
that?). But, okay, if the point is that society makes its own monsters, then
Evelyn is the result of a society that wasn’t willing to acknowledge her worth
as a person, so she decided to return the favor, right?
Nope, that’s not her main motive. She did grow up in a
family where men alone could continue the family legacy, but that’s barely
explored. Her incentive to spark conflict between boys and girls, and later
between Sophie and Agatha, has nothing to do with gender equality. It all
resolves around a guy—the Evil Schoolmaster, the love of her life. She does all of this to resurrect him because of love! Of course, it doesn’t end well for
her, but is her demise meant to exemplify the injustices committed by men
against women? No—we already know the Schoolmaster is evil. Had he been a woman,
it would’ve made no difference. All this buildup, and for what? For Sophie and
Agatha to do what girls with love interests are expected to do.
That’s not to say there isn’t hope. I like that the first
couple of chapters of The Last Ever After
are included after the close of A World
Without Princes. They give us a sneak peek into how Sophie and Agatha’s
respective choices have led to anything but a Happy Ever After. The finale of Without Princes marks the low point for
the girls, but not the end, thank goodness. Still, it leaves a bitter taste. A
frightening antagonist with potential for more depth is reduced to a lovesick
lackey for the real Big Bad, and one
of the few characters who breaks the conventional boundaries of gender is
killed off. Great.
Details like these make it hard for me to give Chainani more
credit for an otherwise fun and gripping series. They also make it hard to
pinpoint what exactly he’s satirizing. Maybe he is posing a critique of hardline feminists who see women as better
than rather than equal to men. Maybe it criticizes how, in a time of rapid
political change, we might be too trusting of people who sweep into power and
claim to be on our side when they have an opposing agenda. Or—and this would be
the best alternative—the story highlights how we can get caught up in wanting to
make other people happy, so we force ourselves to make choices that others
approve of but go against what we really want. Even if that choice is more
“progressive,” it can be just as harmful if it makes you miserable. That’s a
critique I can get behind. If it’s what Chainani was going for, though, it gets
lost along the way.
Rating: 3.5/5
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