Read for the 2011 YA Reading Challenge.
The Princetta is pretty standard sheltered girl rebels against what she considers to be a constricted life, runs away, has grand adventures, falls in love and returns to her life, realizing it isn’t as bad as she thought it was. And as adventures go, this book does those pretty well, though I have to say – it’s nothing like what I expected after reading the summary on the back of the book.
So, I don’t want this to seem like I didn’t like this book, but there were a few things that really annoyed me. First – the author has renamed places with names very similar to their real names, probably in an attempt to make the world seem different, but yet give it some sameness so you have an idea of what you’re dealing with (which when you’re dealing with a trip around the known world, does give you some back story about the lands you’re visiting without tons of exposition). I’m not fond of this device. Granted, this book is translated from French, so I don’t know if this is just in the English translation, or is something that’s more common in French writing. I just don’t like it.
Second – the ending just plain pissed me off. I have certain expectations of the final outcomes for YA novels, and this one broke one of the cardinal rules. Again, it’s a French book, so maybe it works in that literary tradition, but it really annoyed me.