Book review: "The Prince and the Dressmaker" by Jen Wang

 

If you ask me now how I head of The Prince and the Dressmaker, I would not be able to tell you. But it was on my Amazon wishlist way before it came out. I was even going to purchase it when I saw it available on OverDrive through my library. So, obviously, I had to request it.

I found the summary of the book a bit spoilery, so if you would like, just skip over it to my review.

Summary

Paris, at the dawn of the modern age:

Prince Sebastian is looking for a bride―or rather, his parents are looking for one for him. Sebastian is too busy hiding his secret life from everyone. At night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia―the hottest fashion icon in the world capital of fashion!

Sebastian’s secret weapon (and best friend) is the brilliant dressmaker Frances―one of only two people who know the truth: sometimes this boy wears dresses. But Frances dreams of greatness, and being someone’s secret weapon means being a secret. Forever. How long can Frances defer her dreams to protect a friend? Jen Wang weaves an exuberantly romantic tale of identity, young love, art, and family. A fairytale for any age, The Prince and the Dressmaker will steal your heart.

Review

Okay, so my first reaction when I opened up The Prince and the Dressmaker was “this is a graphic novel????”. I admit that my habit of not reading the summary and staying away from spoilers completely blindsided me in this case.

I was delighted though as I found that the format of a graphic novel worked very well for this story.

Discovering this story as it goes felt as if I was a kid reading one of the classic fairy tales for the first time. The pace is great, and the story has all the attributes of a good tale: we have a hard-working dressmaker with a dream and a misunderstood prince who struggles to express himself.

I flew through the book. I found it adorable and cute, a very easy and light read, but lacking in some unidentifiable way, even though I think it is well written. Perhaps, my impression came from the fact that I kept thinking of Gru from Despicable Me every time I saw Sebastian and it just ruined all drama for me (I am sorry! It is the nose!). There are some earlier sketches at the back of the book, and I liked Sebastian better in those with a less pointy nose.

I loved Frances, though. She is strong and talented, and I like how she goes in the pursuit of her dreams even though it means breaking her heart. A delightful character!

Only after finishing the story, I realized that The Prince and the Dressmaker was tagged as a middle-grade book on GoodReads. I am not sure if it is the actual case, as it didn’t feel like a middle-grade novel. I often struggle with the middle-grade genre as those books tend to stay away from edgy topics or gloss over certain details, focusing more on external conflicts rather than internal. In The Prince and the Dressmaker, there is an internal conflict (for both Frances and Sebastian) as well as an external one, and the characters are in their teen years, so I would rather classify it as young adult. However, there is no violence, explicit sexual scenes, etc.,  and it is generally a happy book overall.

Would I give it to read to a 10-12-year-old kid? Absolutely.

The Prince and the Dressmaker can show children that sometimes people can be different, and it is okay. In some ways, it reminded me of George by Alex Gino, although Sebastian does not have the same gender identity (it is not explicitly explained as the story is set in a fairytale setting, but I assume Sebastian is non-binary or gender fluid).

I highly recommend you pick up The Prince and the Dressmaker. It is a light and fun read with an important message hidden within the folds of pretty dresses.

More of my book reviews

Rating: 4 stars

Links:

• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34506912-the-prince-and-the-dressmaker

Book Review: Heartless by Marissa Meyer (audiobook)

 

A year ago when several lucky booktubers were hauling an advanced reader’s copy of “Heartless”, a new stand alone novel by Marissa Meyer, I was feeling rather jealous. The ARC looked stunning and the final version was beautiful too. I had not read a single book by the author, but I was extremely interested in reading “Heartless”.

“Heartless” is a retelling of a story about Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Catherine might be a daughter of marques, but her dream is to become a baker and open her bakery. Her mother, however, dreams of her daughter to be wed to the King of Hearts. Catherine is struggling to find the balance between her parents’ wishes and her own dreams, until one day she meets Jest, a royal joker, and she is immediately attracted to him. But nothing is what it seems, and their secret courtship is overshadowed not only by the impending marriage to the king, but also the attacks by hideous and murderous monster named Jabberwock.

In spite of a great premise, I felt disappointed by the book. I read the first 100 pages and then got stuck, not because I hated the writing or was completely not interested in the plot, but rather because the story felt too slow-paced and too reflective for my taste. I felt almost bored when I was reading it, that is why I found myself picking up the book less and less, until I put it aside for a month or two. Frustrated, I decided to switch to an audiobook version, especially since I found out that it was narrated by Rebecca Soler, who voiced Nimona, and whom I rather liked.

So, I switched to an audiobook, started from the very beginning, and found that, although it was much easier to get through “Heartless” while colouring or doing something else, I was still getting annoyed by the fact that almost nothing was happening. Cath seemed too weak-willed to turn into a real Queen of Hearts. Her shiness and modesty didn’t match with the image of the queen yelling “Off with their heads!”. Jest was intriguing enough, but too good to be true, and I kept waiting for a big dirty secret to be revealed about his past and, unfortunately, was let down. I found some of the secondary characters more interesting than Cath herself.

However, no matter how many problems I had with the action and plot, I found the world wonderfully written. Marissa Meyer did an amazing job intertwining all the elements from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass world together into something that was very fascinating on its own. I would have loved another book set in this world, but not related to “Hearltess” in the plot.

Although Rebecca Soler does a great job voicing different characters, I found her British accent quite annoying and unnecessary. Her Cheshire and Hatter sounded too similar at times. Her King was extremely annoying (purposefully, I assume). Jest was lovely, but I could barely stand Cath or her friend Mary-Ann (not sure if it was because Rebecca is so good of a narrator of it is because I just disliked the characters).

I think the downfall of Heartless for me lies in the predictability of the ending. I mean, we all know what kind of character Queen of Hearts was in Lewis Carroll’s books, so it was never about the ending, but rather about the journey to that ending. ‘The journey’ failed to deliver and ‘the ending’ was just as expected, which turned this book, to my surprise, into a three star read.

I enjoyed the book, I liked the world and some characters a lot. I think that it was very well written. But the plot line made me want to grab the book and shake it until everything gets mixed inside and all the puzzle pieces finally fall into right places. I am still on the fence about how I feel about the book. I liked it, but I might have overhyped it to myself (I wanted to be so badly swept off my feet by it!), so it turned out to be a letdown. It is in no way as bad as some other retellings - it is well written! But it could have been so much better!

Therefore, I am splitting the ratings as follows, as I am not able to give just one rating to this book:

Plot: 3 stars

World/characters: 4.5 stars

Narration: 4 stars

Overall: 3.5 stars

If the author ever decides to write another book in this universe, that would have a completely original plot, I would totally down for it. Otherwise, I am glad that I only spent an Audible credit for an audiobook and didn’t succumb to the urge to buy a physical copy, no matter how pretty the cover is.

P.S. I am totally NOT OKAY with what Marissa Meyer did with Jest and Hatter at the very end. NOPE. That was just UNFAIR.

Affiliated links:

 

Book Review: Of Beast and Beauty by Jay Stacey

 

“Of Beast and Beauty” was the book that I randomly picked from the library after having it recommended to me by BookOutlet based on my browsing and purchases. I knew nothing of this book and had never heard of the author, so I went into it with fairly low expectations. I did pick it up shortly after watching the new movie “Beauty and the Beast”, so I was rather in the mood for this type of retelling.

“Of Beast and Beauty” is a young adult fantasy novel, it is a stand alone, and quite overlooked in my opinion. The setting is a cross between sci-fi/dystopian and fantasy world, and found it very peculiar that there allusions to the times when people came to this world in spaceships.

The main protagonist, Princess Isra, lives in isolation in a tower, protected and hidden from the world due to her blindness and ugliness. Her city, Yuan, is covered by the dome, which has to be protected and reinforced by certain sacrifice to the magic of the city. Outside Yuan there is only desert, in which outcast and beastly people, the Monstrous, live. A group of monstrous finds their way inside Yuan in the hopes of stealing one of the red roses from the garden as their magic was prophesied to save their people from starvation. Gem, one of the monstrous, is captured and becomes Isra’s prisoner. Unexpectedly, Gem and Isra discover that not all things that they both believed in are true.

I suggest that if you want to read this book, stay away from reading the summary either on the flap or GoodReads as it happens to give away quite a bit of book’s events (no idea why). I went into this book completely blind and I think that is why I enjoyed it so much.

It is a rather interesting story, a very easy read. Nothing is too overly complicated, however, the world is rather interestingly constructed and it is not as easy to pinpoint who of either characters is supposed to be Belle and who is The Beast. Both Isra and Gem go through character development, which is great. The book is told from three different points of view, which I rather enjoyed as it showed that none of the characters were flawless or black and white.

Could I predict the book ending? Well, yes, as it is a retelling after all.

Did I know how the things were going to play out? Nope. I found twists and turns quite interesting and there were quite a few things that I didn’t see coming.

It was not the perfectly written book. It had flaws, especially in some of the character’s actions. However, I did like the characters, and all of my favourite moments were to do with the roses and garden. I swear, I was completely hooked by the story the moment when the roses turned out to be magical (it is not really a spoiler). Will probably never be able to view them as harmless flowers.

Personal rating: 3.5 stars