The Legend of Shadow High Review

 

Do you like Monster High, Ever After High, or both? 

Either way, Here's a crossover book between my two of my favorite doll franchises! Was this story good? Well...

The Legend of Shadow High by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale starts off with Frankie Stein and Draculaura from Monster High who hear rumors about a high school monsters historically went to called Shadow High. They find a map and try out some spells to take them to this  Shadow High, but they end up in Ever After High instead! When their sudden appearance causes chaos and gets them in trouble, they are taken under the wings of Apple White and Raven Queen, and they become friends. Well, the new friends find out that Raven's mother, the Evil Queen, wants to also get to Shadow High and take over the World of Stories. The World of Stories happens to be the world where all fictional characters (monsters and fairy tale characters mostly) live, separate from our world by the Fourth Wall (get it?). They have to stop the Evil Queen and rescue Madeline Hatter, whom she kidnapped and is using as bait to get the other characters (well, mostly her daughter Raven) to help her in her plans. The princesses and monsters learn more secrets about their world they never knew before, either, and the actual truth about Shadow High. 

Well, this was a very fun read! The worldbuilding and magic was really cool, and like all crossovers, it was cool to see my favorite characters from different doll franchises interact. One thing I really loved was how much the narrator, Brook Page, talked to us, the readers. There's a lot of fourth wall breaking and reader interaction in this book, which was a lot of fun. 

But I am giving it 4 stars. There were a couple of things I didn't like, or I thought could've been done better. For one, it appears as though the authors decided to use the G2 (Generation 2) version of Monster High, instead of G1 which I am more familiar with. It caught me a little off guard, but I guess this book was written when G2 Monster High was going on (around 2017 ish?), and I guess the authors decided to use the version kids were more familiar with. I also was a little disappointed that we only saw mostly Frankie and Draculaura interact with Apple and Raven? I did want to see more of the characters from each school interact, but I guess since it's a book and not a movie, there was only so much the authors could showcase, and they decided to stick to the main characters. Either way, this was a fun book!