Review of “The Princess Game” by Melanie Cellier

 

Review of “The Princess Game: A Reimagining of Sleeping Beauty” by Melanie Cellier

I’ve been enjoying The Four Kingdoms series so far, and I was curious how author Melanie Collier was going to reimagine the curse of Sleeping Beauty. Each of the books explore a different kingdom and this book takes place in the last kingdom left to explore, Lanover. The main character is princess Celeste, whom we briefly met in the first book “The Princess Companion”, as one of the suitors for Prince Max. In that book she was described as not very intelligent and this book explains why.

Princess Celeste was cursed as a baby just like Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty. However, instead of going into an actual coma sleep, Celeste bargained with the godmothers and in exchange only her mind would be “put to sleep” in the presence of others. It’s a bit of an interesting and sort of confusing take on “sleeping”. Basically, in her head she is the same person, but the curse prevents her from being smart and clever in the presence of people who know her true identity.

So, to get around the curse the Princess assumes a secret identity calling herself Aurora, and acting as a spy in the night. She uncovers a rebellion plot, and is aided by Prince William, who is visiting the kingdom of Lanover with his sister, Marie which we met them in The Princess Pact. Marie is getting married to Rafe who is one of Celeste’s brothers.

I do like the inter-connectiveness of these books, but sometimes it is hard to remember who was introduced in which books. Instead of the evil Maleficent, the woman that cursed Celeste was her aunt Melisande who was banished to an island after the incident.

Prince William tries to court Celeste based on her beauty, but also is attracted to the intelligence and cleverness of Aurora. The princess then joins her brother on a cruise around the islands, along with her mother, younger sister Celine, Prince William and his sister, and Celeste’s uncle Horace. Celeste suspects the rebellion is trying to free her aunt from the island that is being protected by a magical hedge.

We get the real story about what happened to her aunt, and it is a sad story that makes Celeste reconsider the idea that her aunt isn’t the monster that she thought she was. Turns out her aunt had a young baby just before Celeste was born, but her baby and husband had passed away. In a fit of rage due to heartbreak, she cursed Celeste, but didn’t really mean it.

While the first half of the book sets up Celeste as Aurora and the whole rebellion plot, I find it to be a bit slow and not as interesting. It feels like a retread of the plot from “A Midwinter’s Wedding” in which her sister Cordelia was trying to unravel a treasonous plot against the royals. Once they all get on the boat, the story becomes more interesting, and I really liked the ending.

After learning the truth about her aunt and then finally meeting her aunt, Celeste has a change of heart and longer wishes to kill her aunt. With a twist of events, William and Celeste are thrown into a fight together, and he figures out that Celeste is Aurora. With a kiss, her curse is broken, and Celeste tells her mother and sister about her Aurora identity and how the curse actually affected her.

Overall, while I liked some of the characters, I found the whole rebellion plot and her desire to kill her aunt to be too generic and not really motivated. The twist to who was in charge of the rebellion also didn’t make much sense, because we never really got to know that character. However, the ending with Celeste’s aunt trying to make amends was really good. I also liked exploring the new kingdom of Lanover, and we actually go to a few places, not just the palace. It’s a decent entry into this series but not the strongest.

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Review of “A Midwinter’s Wedding” by Melanie Cellier

 Review of “A Midwinter’s Wedding: A Retelling of The Frog Prince” by Melanie Cellier

I’ve enjoyed this series so far, and I was curious what the author would do with the classic tale, “The Frog Prince”. Interestingly, the main character is not a prince but a new princess, Cordelia from Lanover. We have met two of her sisters, and her brother in previous installments. Her elder sister, Clarisse was married to Prince Konrad in “The Princess Fugitive”, her other older sister Princess Celeste was introduced in “The Princess Companion” as a potential marriage prospect for Prince Max, and her brother Rafe was in “The Princess Pact” book. So, by this point in the series we’ve met quite a few characters that all cross over into this novella, such as Prince Max and his wife Alyssa, Princess Ava and her husband Hans, and even Hanna from the novelette.

Despite all the returning characters, this novella is very much about Cordelia and her love story with Ferdinand. The main plot is Cordelia trying to uncover a mysterious plot to poison the royals. The book takes place over the course of about a month, and all the while Cordelia is looking for a potential husband. At first, she thinks Prince William, whom we met in “The Princess Pact”, however she finds him to be shallow and uninteresting. She strikes up a friendship with Ferdinand, captain of the guard. At first, Ferdy’s looks hold her back from thinking of him as more than a friend. But throughout the story Ferdy proves to be loyal, and caring, even saving her life when she fell into the ice lake.

One of the things that I like about this book is Cordelia’s journey of feelings for Ferdinand. It feels honest and realistic, having her want Prince William only to find that despite his handsome looks, she just didn’t have any feelings for him. The opposite happens with Ferdinand. She goes from finding him odd looking, and through his actions, she finds that she wants to spend her time with him.  By the end of the book, she literally must choose who to run to, Prince Will or Ferdy, and she doesn’t even hesitate to run into Ferdy’s arms for protection. It’s a well-done love story between the two characters.

The other main plot is that Cordelia is trying to figure out who is plotting against the royal families. We get small hints throughout the book, keeping up the mystery of what is going to happen. The resolution is well done, with Cordelia and the help of Ferdy, foiling the plan to poison certain royals. It’s an interesting motive, with some people upset that commoners are marrying royalty or members of the court. Prince Max married Alyssa, who was a commoner. Princess Ava married Hans who was not royalty. Lord Stefan married Hanna, a commoner, and even Princess Marie is not technically born of royalty. So, the plot to take them out, ties into the stories that have been told in this series. There’s a lot of crossovers with the previous books, but it doesn’t overshadow the story in this book. Plus, it’s fun to see all these characters interacting with each other, while continuing to build out this world.

I really enjoyed reading this novella, it’s an easy and fun read, that’s well paced. I enjoyed the romance plot with Cordelia as well as the mystery subplot. I have really enjoyed this series, and this is another solid entry.

 

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Review of “Percy Jackson: The Last Olympian” by Rick Riordan

Review of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian” by Rick Riordan

So, like the other books I went into this one not remembering what happens. I knew there was a battle in New York, but that was all I remembered. I was surprised to pick up with Rachel Elizabeth Dare, because I didn’t remember her character’s journey in this series. The opening fight on the ship the Princess Andromeda was good, but I wish we would have gotten to know Beckendorf more because it would have made his death more impactful. One of the weaknesses of this book is the supporting characters, that all of a sudden become important, even though we barely knew them.

Silena Beauregard was a character mentioned throughout the series but we never spent much time with her. So, it was hard to feel sorry for her when Beckendorf dies, just because we’re told they were dating. If we had seen them as a couple their deaths would have been more emotional. The twist of making Silena the spy was interesting, but she immediately dies, so it feels like it was an after thought just to tie up lose plot strings. I do like seeing Clarisse’s friendship with Silena, because it gives her more emotional depth and she’s not just a cliché mean girl. It’s also nice to have Clarisse be the one to defeat the drakon. I think my biggest criticism of this series is the lack of character development for the side characters like Clarisse, Silena, and Beckendorf. Instead, we get a whole book about Zoe, Thalia and Bianca, but two of them die and Thalia is barely in this book.

One of the interesting things in this book is that we learn more about Luke’s past. We meet his mother, and we speak to his father, Hermes, who knew Luke’s fate all along. This book gives us the backstory of Luke that I think we needed earlier in the series. It’s a little too late for me to care about Luke as a person that was troubled and could be redeemed, especially after the 4^th book, which I think did a good job of making him a villain. In the end he does the right thing and defeats Kronus, but I think the book series took too long to give him a redemption arc, and then he dies in the process. Kronus as the overall villain is also fairly weak. He doesn’t really do much, mostly his army does the fighting. Another weakness of this series is the lack of setting up Kronus and Luke as the villains. They’re just not developed enough and don’t do enough of the antagonistic work against Percy and friends. While Luke’s motives are decent, the execution of his plans weren’t well explained or explored.

We do get a good amount of Nico in this book, and he feels like he’s matured a bit since the last book. I like learning what happened with his family. As well as how it relates to the prophecy, and the oracle. I love learning more about the oracle of delphi, the curse that Hades put on it and how that ruined Luke’s mom. If Zeus hadn’t killed Nico’s mom, then Hades wouldn’t have cursed the oracle and Luke’s mom wouldn’t have been affected by the curse. So, it’s interesting how it all comes around in the end. It’s also nice to have Hades come in at the end and the house of Hades be accepted on Mt. Olympus.

Speaking of the Oracle, I love the character arc of Rachel Elizabeth Dare. I liked seeing her in the beginning sort of dating Percy and then having her become the new spirit of Delphi. It makes sense given that we know see can see through the mist, and in this book, she also paints prophetic images. I like that even though she did like Percy, she knew that her place was to be the new Oracle and that Percy belonged with Annabeth. At the end of the book Rachel gives a prophecy that sets up future stories in the Percy Jackson universe. The very ending of the book is Annabeth and Percy finally kissing each other. It’s a sweet ending to finally have Percy and Annabeth get together.

As the final book in the series, I’m not sure that it works well enough to wrap up the series nor does it stand alone. A lot of the things that happened in the previous books don’t play well into this book. What was the purpose of Bessie the ophiotaurus? Why didn’t Thalia play a bigger part? Why introduce Pandora’s Box only to give it to Hestia? And I don’t like the Olympic gods ignoring Percy about Kronos rising. The first third of this book, is good, but the middle section with the battle of New York is a bit slow and boring. I do like the resolution of having Luke be the one to defeat Kronos, it’s a nice twist since we’re expecting it to be Percy. Also, I like that Percy’s wish from the Gods is selfless. He just wants Half-Bloods to be claimed and more Gods to be included.

Also, a minor nitpick but the title of the book, “the last Olympian” refers to the goddess Hestia. I’m not sure why her character becomes the title of the book. At one point Percy leaves Pandora’s Box in Hestia’s hearth for safe keeping, but the box wasn’t that important to the story either. It feels like the author introduced the box then didn’t know what to do with it, so he gives it away. The box represents hope, the hope that Percy can’t give up if he wants to win the battle. But even that isn’t a part of Percy’s character arc, so it feels weird that the title of the book actually doesn’t mean much in the story.

So, overall, this book did some cool things, and we got some good reveals, however it didn’t do enough to capture my full attention and imagination. I think the book is crammed with too much minor stuff that’s not actually important to the plot and doesn’t focus enough on Percy vs Kronos/Luke. So, those are my thoughts about the book. I think it might be my least favorite of the five books. However, a new book has been released, Percy Jackson and t
he Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods, so I’ll have to read that and share my thoughts. Thank you all for reading my reviews of the Percy Jackson series!

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Review of “Percy Jackson: The Battle of the Labyrinth” by Rick Riordan

 

Review of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: 

The Battle of the Labyrinth” by Rick Riordan

Going into this book, I barely remembered anything, other than they go into the labyrinth and meet Daedalus. I forgot that Tyson and Nico were in this book, and I didn’t remember going to these locations. I like the return of Rachel Elizabeth Dare, because I didn’t remember if we ever saw her again, so that was fun to bring her in on the quest. I love giving Annabeth her own quest, and I like spending a good amount of time at Camp Half Blood. We get Chiron in a bit more of that mentor role for Percy, which is what I’ve been waiting for since the first book.

This book follows a similar format of the other books but slightly different. We start off at Camp, then we get the prophecy to start the quest, then the group goes off on the quest and we stop off in several locations to fight various Greek monsters, Percy gets dream/visions and we resolve the battle at the end. But what’s different is, we use the labyrinth to travel across the US, and we don’t know where we’re going to end up. We also separate the group, and then bring in Rachel to help, and we get the twist reveal that Quintus is Daedalus. So, it follows the formula as the other books, but mixes it up to keep us surprised. Even though I didn’t remember this book that well, I liked what we got and where it ended up.

We also get to meet some new gods, we get Hera and Hephaestus as well as Pan. Hephaestus has been mentioned since the first book, so it’s nice to finally meet him. We also get more expansion on Greek myths. Such as Calypso, whom Percy meets as well as a reference to Hercules labor of cleaning the stables. And then we get Daedalus, and the legend of Icarus and King Minos and the labyrinth. So, I like building out the Greek mythological world as it exists alongside the human world.

We don’t get too many new characters in this one, we meet Grover’s girlfriend Juniper, but she doesn’t really do much. We meet Ethan Nakamura, but again he’s not in it much although he does play a part in the prophecy. It’s nice to see Clarisse again and we learn what she was up to off screen in the last book, and I like the subtle relationship she has with Chris Rodriguez, giving her a little bit of a character arc in the background of the story. Quintus AKA Daedalus is an interesting character. I like setting him up as this double agent for Luke, but then it’s really Daedalus. It’s an interesting twist, because throughout the whole book Annabeth admires Daedalus as a hero, and then we find out all the bad things he did, but in the end she gets his laptop of invention ideas.

Similarly, Tyson meets his hero Briares, and is at first let down by him, but then Briares comes to the rescue in the end fight. And it’s a great moment for Tyson, we get more character development from Tyson in this book. He doesn’t come off as childish in this book and proves to be quite competent at times. I also like Grover’s arc in this, something that was started in the first book, and him being the one to find Pan and spread the message seems very fitting for Grover, and it’s good to resolve his mission in this book, before the last book. It’s also kind of cute that Grover has a girlfriend.

Even though this is Annabeth’s quest, it’s still Percy’s story, and sometimes I feel like Annabeth should be center stage when she’s really not. But we do get a lot of jealous Annabeth in this book. She’s clearly jealous of Rachel, even though Percy is a clueless teenage boy and has no idea what to do about these two girls that like, because he might not even know how he feels about them. I do wish we got more character development from Annabeth. Percy does try to talk to her about Luke, but I feel like we still need to explain more about why Annabeth is not willing to give up on Luke, and how Luke feels about Annabeth. I just feel like we never really got to see Luke and Annabeth being great friends, and this is a case where we need to show not tell in order for me to be invested in the redemption of Luke.

Speaking of Luke, I think this might be his best appearance. He finally feels like a villain, and threat, and then he literally embodies Kronos. So, I do like that we’ve taken Luke to a point of no return, because up until now, I just don’t think he was used as a good villain. I do like following up with Nico DiAngelo, and his character arc that we get in this is nice. He starts off hating Percy and using his powers, and talking to the ghost of King Minos, hoping he can bring back his sister. But in the end he stands up to King Minos, proclaims that he is the Ghost King and learns to accept his sister’s death and forgives Percy.

We don’t really get a character arc for Percy in this, but he does get some good moments, I think this book is more about Percy transitioning from that kid that we met in the first book, to a young man that needs to make big decisions about what’s to come in the war against Kronos, as well as figuring out his feelings about girls.

I also like the return of Rachel, I think she’s a fun character and a nice foil for Annabeth. And it’s interesting seeing a mortal being brought into this world of Greek mythology come to life. I also like the ending of the book with Poseidon showing up to Percy’s 15^th birthday party and calling him his favorite son. I do wish we got maybe more interaction between Sally and Poseidon though, because I want their story. Like how did they meet, and when did she learn that he was a Greek God? There’s a lot of questions there. But I think it’s a sweet way to end the book.

Overall, I think this book does a great job of following the Percy Jackson series formula, while adding in some new surprises and twists. I like meeting new gods as well as some of the minor Greek mythological characters. I don’t remember anything from the last book, so everything will feel new to me, and I’m curious how the series is going to wrap up. So, that’s it, those are my thoughts on Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth.

 

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"The Chimera Prophecies" consists of eight short science fiction/dark fantasy short stories. Themes of how reality and identity shape our journey and humanity.