Helpful Score: 1
I'm going to start off with saying, I liked the book. Really I did. I wavered for quite a while about whether to mark it as 3 stars, or 4 stars. However, the reason I went with 3 is because I felt the ending was really unsatisfying.
But, I get ahead of myself. I'm not going to type up a description of what the book's about, you can find that a dozen other places. I'll start with saying that I believe that for a first book by the author, this is a strongly written, good story. I enjoyed the melding of Twelve Dancing Princesses (always one of my favourite faerie tales) with the stories of Hades and Persephone and Beauty and the Beast. I liked that the main character was pretty real-feeling, in that many of her motivations and actions are ones that the reader could relate to. I loved that the author put the herbalist parts in, and wonderfully balanced the 'let's teach them something' with the 'shove the information down their throats' that some writers have trouble with.
However, I started to wonder a bit when the dancing princesses part of the story wrapped up a little over half of the way into the book. I feared that while it wrapped up that part of the story very well, that there may not be enough time to wrap up the rest of the story-lines as nicely before it ended. As I read on, the author brought out more and more questions and quandaries, with less and less time for a satisfying end. By the time the book did end, I found it heartily unsatisfying, since there wasn't really much of a sense of closure to much anything of importance. The closure that did take place (primarily, princesses being shipped off to various marriages, including the marriage of 2 of them that was being led up to for a while) felt hurried and and a bit perfunctory. I understand that the author wanted to leave it open for another book, but I do think that there were just too many question marks being tossed at the reader too close to the end of the book for it to not leave me unsettled when I closed it.
Will I read the sequel when (if) it comes out? Most definitely I will. I would love to read more about the characters and find the answers to the questions left. However, if I'd known how it would end, I would have waited on reading it until I could have read the second book with it.
But, I get ahead of myself. I'm not going to type up a description of what the book's about, you can find that a dozen other places. I'll start with saying that I believe that for a first book by the author, this is a strongly written, good story. I enjoyed the melding of Twelve Dancing Princesses (always one of my favourite faerie tales) with the stories of Hades and Persephone and Beauty and the Beast. I liked that the main character was pretty real-feeling, in that many of her motivations and actions are ones that the reader could relate to. I loved that the author put the herbalist parts in, and wonderfully balanced the 'let's teach them something' with the 'shove the information down their throats' that some writers have trouble with.
However, I started to wonder a bit when the dancing princesses part of the story wrapped up a little over half of the way into the book. I feared that while it wrapped up that part of the story very well, that there may not be enough time to wrap up the rest of the story-lines as nicely before it ended. As I read on, the author brought out more and more questions and quandaries, with less and less time for a satisfying end. By the time the book did end, I found it heartily unsatisfying, since there wasn't really much of a sense of closure to much anything of importance. The closure that did take place (primarily, princesses being shipped off to various marriages, including the marriage of 2 of them that was being led up to for a while) felt hurried and and a bit perfunctory. I understand that the author wanted to leave it open for another book, but I do think that there were just too many question marks being tossed at the reader too close to the end of the book for it to not leave me unsettled when I closed it.
Will I read the sequel when (if) it comes out? Most definitely I will. I would love to read more about the characters and find the answers to the questions left. However, if I'd known how it would end, I would have waited on reading it until I could have read the second book with it.
