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