Jessica Day George

Prelim review: I liked this unique twist on Cinderella. Unlike 'Princess of the Midnight Ball', which was a fairly straight forward retelling of 'The 12 Dancing Princesses', this book took the Cinderella fairy tale and gave it a more disturbing and dark appeal. What if the godmother wasn't so benevolent? What if Cinderella was just a pawn in a larger scheme?

I also enjoyed that Poppy wasn't the center of the story. Not exactly at least. She wasn't the substitute for Cinderella, she was the means by which Cinderella found her freedom and happiness however.

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In Midnight Ball, we got a recounting of 12 Dancing Princesses, which is one of my favorite fairy tales. Its so underused too in my opinion. I'd be over the moon if Disney did a variation of that. Back to point. The novel was pretty straight forward as far as integrating the fairy tale with the novel. In Glass however, we get a variation on Cinderella and George takes us away from the standard retelling and into a whole new category.

What if Cinderella wasn't quite the victim of circumstances as she was a victim of her own pride? What if the godmother wasn't as kindly or benevolent as she appeared? What if the Prince was in love with another girl?

At first I honestly believed I had misunderstood the synopsis. The novel spends a lot of time setting up the characters in their lives before Eleanora (aka 'Ellen' aka 'Ella') meets her 'godmother'. We see Poppy dealing with the fall out from defeating the King Under Stone three years previously (she has PTSD, though its never labeled as such). We see Christian coming to Breton to find a wife and helping cement friendly ties between the kingdoms again. We see Eleanora fail at being a maid.

The different storylines the book follows at times connected only superficially at first, but fate conspired to bring them all together and that's when things got more interesting. I'm not sure what to make of Poppy's nightmares about the Kingdom Under Stone. I think they were more than just nightmares, but that's just a guess on my part.

Since Poppy was moved to a different Kingdom, away from her sisters who also scattered across the lands, we didn't see much of them. Poppy mentions Rose and Daisy quite often, and refers to Galen and wishing he was around to help out, but its not til the end of the novel that anyone shows up. Poppy remarks at one point its the longest time she's been away from her twin (Daisy) or any of her sisters. She could have easily just become a watering pot or melodramatic, but Poppy did what she does best--she adapted.

Its obvious that the Kingdom Under Stone isn't through with Poppy and her sisters, but I wonder how much of what happened in Breton was coincidence and how much of it was fate. One of Poppy's nightmares would suggest it was less coincidence then ought to be, but then does that mean all of her sisters are facing or will face similar situations? In some variations of the 12 Dancing Princesses, the youngest daughter is the one who marries the soldier/guard who saves them, so I wonder if George is working towards the youngest daughter's story of defeating the Kingdom Under Stone completely?… (more)

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.… (more)