It ended up being mediocre for me. I liked the premise--what happens after the "happily ever after" at the end of fairy tales. Turns out they go on to have families.

Princes and princesses are assumed to be protagonists in their own stories and are sent to "finishing" schools to be trained as such. A few lucky commoners receive "prologues" as well and get the same treatment.

Unfortunately, the schools seem to tend to stick to the "traditional" roles. Men are the heroes; they get to do the fighting, the defending, etc. Women need to be rescued and should comport themselves properly at all times. The girls do seem to get the shorter end of the stick--they're trapped within their school grounds by a spell most of the time.

And had the story stuck to that, I'd probably have rated it higher. But to me, the story dragged on way too long.

WARNING: SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW. READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
*****

Crisanta, called Crisa, is the daughter of Cinderella. She rooms with Snow White Jr., called SJ, and Blue, the sister of Red Riding Hood. They are also friends with Jason (and Mark who is mentioned but never shows up in this book). Jason's new roommate is Daniel.

While SJ seems content to follow the "princess" storyline, Crisa wants to be an untraditional protagonist, so when her prologue comes telling her she's going to marry a man she despises, she decides it's time to go find the author and try to plead her case to get her plot changed.

And that's about where I think this book should have ended.

Because after that, we're subjected to the group tricking a fairy godmother trainee in order to find Fairy Godmother Headquarters--in an attempt to locate Crisa's former fairy godmother, Emma. Then, when that fails, we're forced to endure the girls's attempts to steal several enchanted items from their school's exhibit so that they can use the mirror to show them where Emma is. Then, they have to escape their school and travel to find Emma, who gives them a list of three items that they will need to be able to break the spell surrounding the author, and finally, before book one mercifully ends, they must secure the first item from the list. During that last, Crisa learns that her dreams have some root in the real world, and also that the council is faking royal prologues as well as destroying ones that come for commoners.

So, let me guess, the author probably wrote a non-traditional prologue for Crisa which was intercepted by the council and a fake one written and substituted in its place--either that or Chance is supposed to protect Crisa somehow (even though she'd rather protect herself). ( )

Faint tendency towards harping on a subject (reminiscent of the essay pattern: say it, repeat it, say it again, lol), but it's quite an interesting story.
Crisanta is Cinderella's rebellious daughter. As in, she thinks it's unfair that protagonist's stories aren't a record of their life choices but rather the story "the author" lays out for them. (When you put it that way, I agree!) She's got two best friends, one snarky high-school type enemy, and a wild idea that she can change her future.
Along the way, she rides flying horses, occasionally uses a word incorrectly, finds Fairy Godmother headquarters, and...well, the story is just getting going when it ends and I realized it was a series. Lol, not quite a whiplash-vertigo class cliffhanger. I wouldn't mind reading more of this series. ( )

I did not enjoy this at all. I didn't like the writing style. I could not get into the story because the character would branch off and talk to the reader. And at one point she says something happens then says to the reader "just kidding" and goes on to tell what really happened. I get that a lot of writers can get away with that and make it seem natural but this just doesn't work here. Nothing really does. The storyline alone didn't work for me or draw me in. And the prologue seems almost like an instruction booklet on the world of this book instead of naturally giving us any world building. I don't like giving bad reviews but I'm going to be honest because I hate wasting my time and I honestly could barely read this. I admit I started to skim it just to finish.

I received an arc from NetGalley and the publisher. ( )

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Boutique of Quality Books in exchange for an honest review.

This is both the first book I've read by this author and the first book in this series. I found the book somewhat randomly when I was searching through NetGalley to see if there was anything interesting to read. This one caught my eye, and I'm glad it did.

There's some kind of addictive/hypnotic quality to the writing that caused me to want to keep reading, to continue following along as the story unfolded. This is a good thing, since the lead character had a tendency to do something that I normally find annoying - she was in her head a lot. Not little snippets here and there, but massive amounts of words trapped inside the lead character's head. but, as I noted something was addictive about the whole process so I just shrugged off that specific annoyance.

Characters
Crisanta Knight: is the lead character in this book, and sole point of view. She's a 16 year old girl, and has spent a good bit of her life going to a specific school. One for young pincesses and other protagonists. I'll mention more what that means in the plot section. For now I'll just leave it at (1) 16 year old girl; (2) is a princess - the daughter of Cinderalla and Prince Charming (though the father's given a different name, I didn't really catch why though); (3) Crisanta has spent a good part of her life attending the school I already referenced; (4) she, and the vast majority of the others in this book live in a place called 'Book', which, in it's way, is a fantasy land; (5) Crisanta is not happy with the concept of being a 'princess, a damsel in distress, who must be rescued by her prince' and fights that fate as much as she can, despite her position in the world.

SJ: is both a good friend to Crisanta and her roommate. She is also a princess. The daughter of Snow White (SJ's actually Snow Junior, hence SJ). Of the three girls who live in the same dorm room at the school, she's the most 'princess-y' of the lot. Crisanta's more half and half - half princess-y; half rebelleous. SJ, as part of her being the perfect princess, does the things expected of a princess - which includes following the rules, speaking correctly, singing perfectly, and having many animal friends who do her bidding.

Blue: the third roommate, is a 'common' protagonist and one of the very rare few allowed the very slight chance of being some form of minor heroic figure (though not a hero, apparently). Even though she's a 'common' protagonist, she's also a 'half-legacy', because her sister was a protagonist - her sister being little red riding hood (Red wore a red cape all the time, Blue wears blue all the time).

Jason: is a prince at the male version of the school Crisanta attends. He's friends with the three, though closest to Blue.

Daniel: is a 'common' protagonist, a roommate of Jason's, and something of an antagonist to Crisanta (though not really, they just get on each other's nerves).

Setting
This book takes place in a land of 26 kingdoms called Book. There are some adjacent realms, mostly unspecified, though one of them is a place called 'Earth.' There are also two other places mentioned in this book, though I'm not certain if they are adjacent realms or in Book.

The people in 'Book' grow up in a society wherein they know that some of the people will end up being 'protagonists' in books (though it is not specificed as to whether or not they know what that means). Royals and select commoners become protagonists. The rest are left to being something like side characters.

Plot
Crisanta is quite annoyed with the idea of being a 'damsel in distress' and fights constantly to try to change her fate, despite knowing that there is no way to change her fate. At least, that's what everyone tells her. So, instead of saying do not, she says don't (as in she uses contractions, 'princess do not use contractions). She'd prefer to take classes in sword-fighting rather than classes in fainting, but that isn't her fate. For she's a princess.

The majority of the book takes place at this 'Lady Agnue's School for Princesses & Other Female Protagonists' place. There are a few 'balls', 'field trips' and other such events during the school year, and a summer vacation of some unknown number of months.

So the book follows Crisanta as she attempts to navigate this school; while being constantly 'attacked' in her dreams by rather vivid nightmares (and some blurry ones as well). The nightmares are where I pull in the part wherein I noted that most of the action takes place in Book. Well, some takes place in Crisanta's dreams of a specific girl who happens to live on earth.

The school year proceeds, events unfold, places are visited on field trips, sporting events occur, and finally a quest is attempted involving a few young women and a few young men.

Overall
I rather enjoyed the book and wish to immediately continue the story. Alas I cannot for the next book isn't due to appear until, I believe, December 2016. For the most part I liked the people I was supposed to like, and the only real negative I can think of, well two negatives: (1) there are a lot of pages in which Crisanta is 'thinking' a lot in her brain. Not exactly whimpering like thoughts, but bordering on them; (2) there are a lot of pages in this book, there is a bunch of stuff that occurred but it didn't really feel like the story actually got going until the endish parts. Then the book was done. The book ended on something of a cliff-hanger (in terms of the story not being wrapped up, not in terms of literally having a scene cut in half; I've had that happen to me before. Being in the middle of the scene, someone is thrusting their fist forward . . . .book ends, have to wait until next book to see what happens (in one specific case involving a story by David Weber, the book ended mid-invasion, and the invasion wasn't picked up again until like three books later). So yeah, this ended without the story being wrapped up, but not mid-scene.

It's a good neat interesting book. I recommend it for one and all. Or something like that.

March 27 2016 ( )