Like George's previous book I read, Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, Princess of the Midnight Ball is an adaptation of one of my favorite fairy tales, "The Twelve Dancing Princesses". Its not very very often that I find books, longer then a picture book, using this fairy tale. There is, depending on the version and translation, several different ways to interpret the tale, but they're all sort of...complicated.
The story follows, for the most part, a young soldier named Galen as he returns to his mother's homeland from the long War. The novel also follows Rose, the eldest Princess, but a lot more time is spent on Galen who is a stranger to the city and to his mother's family. I liked Galen; good-natured, a hard worker and charming, he wanted to do right by everyone he met. And that sort of karma paid off for him in ways he could never have imagined.
Rose was also very endearing. Though sweet and good-natured herself, she grew more spirited as the book wore on and she became hopeful that something could be done to break the curse. I wouldn't say her 11 sisters were exactly interchangeable--but really only 4 stood out from the rest in any significant way. Poppy--mischievous and adventurous where her quieter twin Daisy was not; Lily, the second oldest who understood Rose's pain quite well; Violet, who adored music and Hyacinth who was devoutly religious and suffered more than the others perhaps by the curse. Actually its something of a joke for the 12 sisters--the three oldest are called 'the older set', the three youngest are called 'the younger set' and then the six in between were called 'the in betweeners'.
On an emotional level I felt bad for the girls, but I knew that good would triumph so it was a little shallow feeling. I grew more worried with how the curse would end then anything else (several times I thought George was going to pull a martyr routine with one of the girls). Galen's scheme, was very very clever and relied on both cunning and luck. The end was also nicely tied up, with a bunch of loose ends fixed and happy thoughts all around.
Parts of the book felt very drawn out, such as how long it took Galen to get around to figuring things out vs. how long it took him to 'fix' the problem so to speak. And the visiting Bishop was annoying and creepy; he hammered home how little I cared for the clergy.
Poppy, incidentally, is getting her own book called Princess of Glass which is a re-imaging of "Cinderella". I can't wait; I simply adore George's fairy tale re-tellings and hope for a few more.
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Predictable fairy-tale re-telling
I went into this book expecting a new and interesting take on The Twelve Dancing Princess' fairy tale. What I got was a re-telling. I didn't find anything new or original added to the story. That being said, it was still a decent fairy tale re-telling. The narration was a little stiff like I was listening to some old person tell it in a dry, 3rd-person manner. The narration made it hard to care much for the characters. I wasn't emotionally invested in the story at all. Her writing was good and now that I know this series is strictly a re-telling I will still pick up the second book, Princess of Glass. The main reason I didn't like this book much was how predictable it was. I knew from chapter 2 what the characters should do and they actually got around to doing it 100 pages later. I walked away from this book feeling like it had so much potential that it didn't quite live up to. If she had changed the narration so I could get in the character's heads a little bit and care about them, it would have made a world of difference.
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arrived on time and glad to have found it at such a good price ...
Reviewed in Canada on September 12, 2015
