Friday, September 5, 2008
Book Review . . .Princess Academy
I've been on the hunt for a good book to read, so I got a suggestion from my friend Hilary who has a Book List on her blog. It's called Princess Academy. I started it last Saturday and just finished it today. I REALLY liked it! It takes place in a kingdom called Danland and is a story about a 14-yr-old girl who lives on Mt. Eskel where her village earns its living as linder, a type of white stone with streaks of different colors in it, miners. It is custom for the priests of the king to receive divine "revelation" as to where in the kingdom the next princess would come from. This time the area was Mt. Eskel. Everyone in the "lowland" was in an uproar b/c the mountain village was not considered a province of the kingdom, only a territory with only uneducated common folk living there. It is a tradition to set up a princess academy to get the teenage girls prepared and presentable enough for a ball where the prince would then choose his princess. Most of the time it only takes a few weeks to brush up the skills of the girls from wealthy families, but this time it was to go a whole year because the mountain girls were so backward and uneducated according to the king and his court's standards. Miri, the main character, has a great personality - very straight-forward and courageous. The author keeps you guessing up until the very end of the book. I enjoyed the story line and the fact that I could escape from reality and throw myself into a whole different world than the one I experience everyday. I guess I really enjoy fantasies, although this one didn't have dragons, wizards, and such. It DID have princes and princesses and a touch of "magic" that was intriguing. I did some research online about the author, and although it didn't come right out and SAY she was LDS (Latter-day Saint) it was pretty easy to pick up that fact. I called Kent and told him to check out another book from her for me since he is going to run past the library before coming home from work. If anyone thinks this sounds good, give it a try! I think I will start doing reviews on the books I enjoy. I know I am always looking for good books to read, so maybe others are too and this will help! :) Thanks Hil for the great recommendation!
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3 comments:
I was just thinking I needed to get a new fun book, thanks for the recommend Kris! I also hear the Goose Girl or something like that is good, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet.
I loved this book too. Shannon Hale is LDS. She also wrote a 3 book series called the Books of Bayern. I liked the first, The Goose Girl, and the third one, River Secrets, but the second one is a bit hard to get through, Enna Burning. I still like the whole series though. My favorite book by Hale is Book of a Thousand days.
Along the same lines I really enjoyed several books by an author named Gail Carson Levine. She wrote Ella Enchanted. The book is way better than the movie, even though I really like the movie. Some other books by her that I loved are Fairest and The Two Princesses of Bamarre. She has written lots of great shorter stories too that could keep you busy with good books for a while.
Another Series that I greatly enjoyed that might interest you is The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. It has 3 books but our library only has book 1 and 3. The second Megan got on Inner Library loan and then she let me borrow it.
Happy Reading!
I'm glad you liked it!
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