“An empowering and timely story about resistance.” —Booklist

Princess Academy meets Megan Whalen Turner in this stunning novel about a girl who won’t let anything tame her spirit—not the government that conquered her people, and definitely not reform school!

Malley has led the constables on a merry chase across her once-peaceful country. With her parents in prison for their part in a failed resistance movement, the government wants to send her to a national school—but they’ll have to capture her first.

And capture her they do. Malley is carted off to be reformed as a proper subject of the conquering empire, reeducated, and made suitable for domestic service. That’s the government’s plan, anyway.

But Malley will not go down without a fight. She’s determined to rally her fellow students to form a rebellion of their own. The government can lock these girls up in reform school. Whether it can break them is another matter entirely…

After her parents are jailed for a failed resistance movement, Malley is sent to reform school, where she plans some resistance of her own.

“Malley is an engaging narrator whose gradual maturation adds an endearing layer to her character. . . . Although the book is set in a fictional semi-industrialized world, readers are likely to notice parallels from history . . . as well as themes, such as the complications that arise from ideological purity, that resonate with current political discussion.”