by Anne-Laure Bondoux
ages: 12+
First sentence: “A few months ago you summoned me to the Council Chamber.”
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Malva dreams of adventure. She’s the crown princess of Galnicia, and she loathes being a puppet in her parent’s grand plans. She hates sitting, looking perfect and pretty and dreams of escape. So, on the night before her engagement party (to some stuffy old prince), she and her maid escape from the castle.

Thus begins The Princetta, a book in the tradition of Grand Fantasy: high adventure, romance, princesses, noble sailors, evil revenge-seeking counts, giants, sirens, mystical lands, battles, storms… in fact, it reminded me a lot of The Princess Bride. Except, it didn’t quite work.

I don’t know if it was the translation — it was originally written in French — or the story. But, honestly, about halfway through the book I started skimming because it was boring. There was a lot of telling, rather than showing, and Malva — for all her feisty ideals — wasn’t terribly interesting. For all the characters to juggle, it was managing okay, until they got to the mystical Archipelago, where they were to get Tested and Tried. The book was only half done, and I had no idea how it was going to manage for the rest of the (overlong) 430 pages. I skimmed enough to get the gist of it, read the ending (which wasn’t predictable at all, which surprised me) and called it quits.

I do wish it had been better, though.