Princess of the Midnight Ball - Jessica Day George
Genre: YA Fairytale Retelling Fantasy
# of pages: 280 (pb)
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
My Thoughts:
POTMB was just a fun, relaxing and highly enjoyable read. It was the perfect addition to the Thanksgiving holidays. Every once in awhile, you just need to get lost in a fairytale!
If you can't tell from the title, POTMB is a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses story, and it's rather faithful to the original tale - there really are *twelve* (count 'em) princesses who mysteriously wear out their dancing shoes every night. Mystery and intrigue ensue, and a veteran soldier takes it upon himself to solver the hoofer mystery. There's another book that I'd recently read that dealt with the Twelve Dancing Princesses story - Wildwood Dancing - but I guess George's adaptation is more true to the original material. I'd still recommend WD as well, though :) As far as retellings go, this was a very decent adaptation, but I was a teeny-weeny bit underwhelmed by the love story. It's one of those situations where they characters just seem to decide that they're in love, despite having spent no time together and knowing nothing about each other.
But I just find it so amazing that George can take a pretty short and straightforward fairytale and weave it into a complex, intriguing and original story. That's incredibly talented! I also liked how the twelve princesses had distinct and unique voices, even though there were twelve of them!
And the nefarious King Under Stone was all-around creepy. Brilliant, Mrs. George! I was certainly hooked!
For what it was - a sweet, fun, fairytale retelling - I thought this book was very well-done. It was a solid story, stayed true to its fairytale inspiration, and had strong, likable characters involved in an exciting, engaging plot. I was not disappointed at all!
Final Grade:
Genre: YA Fairytale Retelling Fantasy
# of pages: 280 (pb)
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
My Thoughts:
POTMB was just a fun, relaxing and highly enjoyable read. It was the perfect addition to the Thanksgiving holidays. Every once in awhile, you just need to get lost in a fairytale!
If you can't tell from the title, POTMB is a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses story, and it's rather faithful to the original tale - there really are *twelve* (count 'em) princesses who mysteriously wear out their dancing shoes every night. Mystery and intrigue ensue, and a veteran soldier takes it upon himself to solver the hoofer mystery. There's another book that I'd recently read that dealt with the Twelve Dancing Princesses story - Wildwood Dancing - but I guess George's adaptation is more true to the original material. I'd still recommend WD as well, though :) As far as retellings go, this was a very decent adaptation, but I was a teeny-weeny bit underwhelmed by the love story. It's one of those situations where they characters just seem to decide that they're in love, despite having spent no time together and knowing nothing about each other.
But I just find it so amazing that George can take a pretty short and straightforward fairytale and weave it into a complex, intriguing and original story. That's incredibly talented! I also liked how the twelve princesses had distinct and unique voices, even though there were twelve of them!
And the nefarious King Under Stone was all-around creepy. Brilliant, Mrs. George! I was certainly hooked!
For what it was - a sweet, fun, fairytale retelling - I thought this book was very well-done. It was a solid story, stayed true to its fairytale inspiration, and had strong, likable characters involved in an exciting, engaging plot. I was not disappointed at all!
Final Grade:
