Overall Grade: B+
Houghton Mifflin; 2008
Catherine Gilbert Murdock may have created one of the most original fairy tale princesses ever in her gluttonous, spunky, ill-behaved Princess Ben. She did an excellent job of making us feel for an imperfect character, enough to love her despite (and because of) her imperfections, and love her even more as she overcomes them. Unfortunately, the secondary characters shared neither this charm nor believability, but Ben was lovable enough to compensate. The plot was well-thought-out and creative; again, unfortunately not all aspects were as good as others. Sometimes the first-person narrator dramatized a situation at first telling, only for us to find out later that the whole issue wasn’t too big a deal, insignificant enough to be trivialized away in a sentence or two. We would have liked to see Ben resolve these issues, instead of having them resolve themselves. Overall, though: a worthwhile read.
Literary Quality: B (some anachronisms and inconsistent language detracted from style)
Plot: A-
Voice: A-
Originality: A
Descriptive Ability: A-
Humor: A
Illustrations: (none)
Believability of Characters: C (In particular, the secondary characters came across flat)
Believability of Situations: C
Overall Reading Enjoyment: A-
Possibly objectionable topics*: sorcery; “bawdy jokes”; warfare.
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