Princess of the Midnight Ball

Title: Princess of the Midnight Ball
Authors: Jessica Day George
Pages: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury



Review:

I like fairytales in most shapes and forms: from the gruesome and traditional Brothers Grimm versions to the sweet and sanitized Disney ones. Still, I play favorites with stories just as much as I do with books – my favorite fairytale has always been “Beauty and the Beast,” followed by “The Six Swans,” and finally “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” Of all those, I was only missing an enjoyable novelized version of the last one.

Guess which fairytale the book I’m currently reviewing is based on. I’ll give you a hint: I just told you earlier.

Princess of the Midnight Ball is a refreshing new take on a story most people are familiar with. However, no matter how much you loved the story, the original is a couple of pages long, and thus the characters are mere caricatures. There is no distinction between all twelve princesses. The soldier who tries to save them from the ball is a much older man who, in true fairytale fashion, has the tools needed to solve the puzzle.

Obviously, in nearly three hundred pages, we get a noticeable amount of details that weren’t there in the older version. The princesses are quite charming and mostly distinct, while Galen (the male main character) completely steals the show with his personality full of kindness and fun. Furthermore, I enjoyed the importance of a traditional pastime in this new retelling – knitting! The book even comes with two knitting patterns as an epilogue of sorts.

This doesn’t mean that the book is perfect. The style is too simple for my taste, and we are still missing character depth, particularly in secondary characters. Still, it does capture the general feel of enchantment, curses, and mystery that makes the entire genre so curiously satisfying. It isn’t a book I’ll reread time after time, but it’s sweet enough that you probably won’t regret giving it a chance.