Book Review: Princess Academy

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale


My kid said this was good, and assured me it wasn’t anything as cutesey as the Princess Diaries. It is a coming of age novel involving girls in a somewhat fantasy/middle-ages world, but it doesn’t feel like it’s in McFantasyland the way I’d feared, even though the premise sounds pretty meh: all the girls of a village are sent to an academy to learn how to be a princess because it’s been foretold by the priests that the prince’s bride will come from their remote mountain village.

Here’s why this book is more than that: It’s not about girls being catty, fighting, bachelorette-style, for male attention. Some of them want to be a princess, some of them don’t, some of them are ambivalent about it. Their reasons for wanting to be the princess are also varied. Some girls want to help their family while others just want to get out of their remote village. Even though they’re all pretty similar, they all have their own baggage. The protagonist feels useless because her father won’t let her work in the quarry. Another girl is mildly disabled. Another girl is an outsider because her parents were lowlanders. One girl has an unhappy home life. Some girls are strong and some are clever and some aren’t, but they all have their own hangups and issues.

What I liked about this book was the theme of growing through education. Part of their education involves diplomacy, commerce, conversation, and poise. These girls use this education to improve their lives and the lives of their village. All the girls work together, more or less, and the protagonist’s strength is her leadership. She uses what she’s learned to forge alliances, get help when they’re overwhelmed, give her village elders the information they need to form better trade agreements, and negotiate for better treatment at the academy (which is just one tutor in a big drafty stone building.) There is a little bit of magic, but most of their strength is in their ability to help one another. I also think that some of the depictions of teen romance were pretty spot-on. I was a bit squicked out by girls as young as 12 being considered of marriageable age, but I guess if you’re backwards enough to live with goats, we have to allow leeway. I also didn’t like that the girls were cut off if they were 18 because the prince was 18 and god forbid he should marry someone his own age or 2 months older. That’s kind of a weirdly prescriptive stuff, but again, they live with goats, so whatever. Different culture. It’s still less in-your-face with the sex/romance stuff than most Disney.

I recommend this for young people or those of us who like to read inappropriate genres.






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