Book Review - The Princess And I by Rebekah Eddy

   Who doesn't love a good medieval fantasy now and then? Spec. fiction is my favorite genre, and so when Rebekah was willing to send ARCs of her lovely book to anyone who would review it, I jumped on the chance ;). 

3 1/2 Stars

  
   Anything below three stars (for me, anyways) signifies that a book didn't meet my standards - but this one certainly did! While there were some things that I didn't enjoy so much, there were multiple things that I did! 

   - It reminded me of a Gail Carson Levine book. It seriously did - the pacing, the characters, the medieval setting. Even the plot - while it was original in its own way - made me think along the lines of a Levine book (The Two Princesses Of Barmarre, perhaps?). And I really enjoyed Levine books*, so it was really fun to read something that reminded me of one.

   - Originality. This book, while it did slip into more-cliche things sometimes, held its own very well. There were several things that could have become cliche very fast - but Rebekah managed to keep most things from being so. 

   - The Characters**. At first I was unsure about the main character (which, considering it's me, doesn't mean too terribly much - I may or may not judge characters a little harshly *cringes*), but later on I loved her just as much as all the rest of them. And I was insanely upset about this one thing that happened to this one character at the end of the book - but I can't say because #spoilers xD. 



* no one ever gets too old for fairytales, come on now.
** you guys should have expected it. CHARACTERS ARE MY THING. MY THING, PEOPLE.

   - Some of the emotions weren't entirely realistic. I'm very picky about emotions in books - they need to be realistic, otherwise the book is going to start drifting to the wrong end of the star-spectrum for me*. Luckily though, most of the emotions were still pretty realistic, so the book didn't drift too far. There was still some that I wasn't entirely pleased with, though.     

   - The pacing was a bit fast. For someone else, this might have settled with them just fine, but I wasn't a fan. The latter half felt paced much better, but the first half seemed to be moving a bit quick. A little too quick, in my opinion.   

- It didn't quite hook me from the beginning. Of course I was going to read through the whole thing - I'm reviewing it, after all - but I don't know if I would have continued if it had just been something I had randomly picked up at the library**. That being said, I'm super glad that I agreed to review this because the book just got better and better ;). 



*one star = all the wrath of raging stars (or, ya know, I didn't finish it). two stars = ... less wrath. But you still don't want your book to go there, thank you very much. 
** but library books have to fight hard against all the other books that I actually own which are still on my tbr list. It's a bitter war, you guys. 

   Anyone who loves Gail Carson Levine's writing (or medieval fantasy) should definitely give The Princess And I a chance. It's releasing tomorrow, so make such to check it out on Amazon! Rebekah Eddy did a wonderful job with this book - I'm very glad that I decided to give it a go. I'll probably hand it over to Ariel (who has the best story-telling voice in the family) so that I can hear the adventure read aloud - and so I can get my younger sisters to squeal over it with me ;).    

~ Savannah Grace 

   Have you read anything by Gail Carson Levine? Do you enjoy medieval settings in a book? (also, I'd be much obliged if you guys would take this survey for the new blog design ;))