I couldn’t figure out why TW was so happy to read Princess Ben. And when she started talking about how excited RJ would be to read it, I was just plain skeptical. (RJ only reads vampire novels right now, unless forced to read something else…)
When TW and the kids came home from school pick up and RJ had stolen Princess Ben out from under TW… and then would not return it to her later that evening so her mother could finish it, I was more than a little shocked.
There are no vampires in Princess Ben. And it seemed like just another strong girl princess sort of book. Also, while I liked Off Season and Dairy Queen, the writing was not so compelling as to cause teenage girls (or their mothers) to fight over them.
So what was it about Princess Ben…? I have no idea, but it was good. It was compelling. It was worth fighting over. There wasn’t anything super surprising about it. This was not the first time we’ve read a Princess slays dragon and wakes the Prince with a kiss sort of book. I don’t even think it was the emotional eating Princess.
Not that I know what, exactly, causes this to be a great book – a combination of those things plus surprisingly good writing, characters you’re drawn to, and the dropped mentions of other fairy tales – all of the above?
Surely this will make the Cybil short list…
I want to say that Princess Ben was on last year’s Cybils list… maybe it was longlisted?
It grabbed RJ for the same reason it grabbed me. The snarky, melodramatic chapter titles and supercilious grown ups rot attitude. That combined with the ok, so maybe not all grown ups suck eggs and sometimes they may have a point made it engaging.
It got on my list due to the emotional eating/traditionally built woman as opposed to traditional princess build sub plot.