2.5 stars

“Compared to those distant powers, the problems of the human heart seemed unimportant.”

Malva is a fifteen-year-old Princess of Galnicia with a dream to escape her fate and duty in pursuit of free will and adventure. Philomena, Malva’s chambermaid and best friend, agrees to stow away with Malva and sneak out of Galnicia. Malta and Philomena promise to live the rest of their lives together, but the future does not go as planned.

Orpheus has always been drawn to the sea but believes he has a medical condition that prevents him from being able to survive on the open water. When rumors of Malva being alive and imprisoned circle the city, Orpheus is determined to answer the call of the ocean and his nation—he resolves to rescue the princess at all costs.

“Everyone on board the Fabula knew it wouldn’t be easy to explain their passage beyond the boundaries of the Known World."

The Princetta has the potential to sail you to a different world on the trail of adventure but falls flat in the delivery. Malta and her crew find themselves in interesting and unique situations, which is the only reason I kept reading. The main reason I wanted to stop reading this book is the pace. The pace is too slow, and the book would benefit from some edits to remove unnecessary information that weakens the plot of the story; for example, a lengthy return to Galnicia and restoring the nation. The story starts when Malta leaves Galnicia and should end when she returns. Instead, the ending reveals a variation of HEA—not romantically— that is dissatisfying and does not leave the reader daydreaming like you would expect an adventure novel should. Additionally, the character Lei is a built-in “get out of jail free card,” and stunts the suspense and growth of the plot. The novel was just okay. I did not want to keep picking it up, but I did because I wanted it to be over. It is possible the French version did the story justice and did not translate well to English. ( )

A pretty fair fantasy adventure romance kind of thing, with a few memorable bits and pieces, although it was disappointing that Malva's fiery anti-establishment instincts fizzled out so completely - for her, the personal did not, after all, become political. The invented words were very appealing, though, even if there were moments when the writing (as translated from the original French) didn't always quite work for me. ( )

Originally published in French as La Princetta et le Capitaine, Anne-Laure Bondoux’s 2004 novel is a children’s epic of adult proportions. Published in the U.S. by Bloomsbury Children’s Books, it has retained the basic aspects of a children’s novel – the high adventure, made up creatures and far-off places—but has also retained a mature perspective on the concept of the hero and of the epic journey.

Bondoux has managed to make adult emotions and situations playful by creating a whole new world out of the mixed origins of our real world. She’s taken known cultures – American, German, Italian, Spanish, Indian, Japanese and French (for example) and mixed them together, mixed their languages together, to make this new world with its new vocabulary.

Some terms and items retain their meanings (i.e. a harem is still a harem and a sword is still a sword) but others are composites of various languages. For instance, the robes worn inside the harem are called “sarimonos,” an obvious combination of the Indian sari and the Japanese kimono. (Yes, I feel like the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.) . And then there are the slave-guardians of Gai’s harem, the preunuchs, a term which sounds like a mix of “prefect” (at least, by Harry Potter standards of the definition of prefect) and “eunuch.”

Bondoux not only combined languages, but created a tour de force of both cultural and literary pastiche. The structure of the story is basically reminiscent of French and German fairy tales but as the journey continues the palate broadens, dipping into shades of Greek tragedy, biblical parables and even venturing towards LeGuin’s Earthsea in the chapters on the archipelago. Even some of the character names draw on literature and myths—specifically Orpheus (related to the myth of Orpheus and Euridice), Zeph (best associated with Zephyrus who brought Psyche to Cupid’s palace) and—though perhaps the most obscure—Babilas (who is quite large and quite strong, whereas St. Babilas was the patron saint of those with rheumatism and arthritis.)

I imagine the novel was quite a task for translator Anthea Bell to take on. Taking words of mixed origins settled among the regular French text must have been slightly troublesome. However, she managed wonderfully. As beautiful as I’m sure the novel reads in its original French, Ms. Bell has managed to take Bondoux’s work and make English feel like the original. That being said, the real beauty lies in the imaginative world that Bondoux has created—a world where women are sometimes islands, fathers are not always kind, and dreams aren’t always what we’ve wished for.

A side note: this is one of those books that I came across kind of accidentally, and fell in love with. I'm sad that I have to give it back to the library, and I hope to someday own my own hardcover copy...when I can afford it!

Lauren Cartelli
www.theliterarygothamite.com ( )

I also, as I'm assuming countless others did the same, picked The Princetta up solely because of the cover. Seriously, the book's marketing department deserves major kudos. I remember browsing through the YA section of my local B&N and thinking what last book to pick up (since I already had three must-haves). It was between this and another book (whose name currently evades me), but for some reason (mainly the cover), my eyes kept glancing at The Princetta. So, I decided to buy this one. Of course when I got home, I searched for the reviews on Amazon and thought I had made a terrible mistake when I saw that it was given an average rating of two and a half stars. All these reviews kept saying how terrible the book was particularly the ending. So, I was imagining that this book was going to be horrific, so I put off reading it for a while. Well, I finally picked it up and since my expectations were so incredibly low, I actually ended up really enjoying it.

I didn't think I was going to like the whole voyage storyline (yes I read the synopsis before I bought it and knew that a voyage was essential to the plot, but again I say, hello, look at the cover! Never underestimate the power of a beautiful cover...) because everytime I read a book about a sea voyage, I tend to get mildly seasick. (I'm well aware that this is weird and all in my head, but really I can't help it.) But I got sucked into the voyage like you wouldn't believe. I found myself looking forward to what island they would go to next and what terrible monsters they were going to face. I felt like a kid again who was always looking at those fantasy island maps and thinking, "I'd love to go there and fight monsters with my sword". Heh, even then there were no dreams of being a princess for me. I wanted to be right in the action.

Now the characters. I really loved Malva at the beginning. She was assertive, sure of what she wanted, and she didn't seem like the typical, whiny, pathetic, YA heroine that's sort of the norm in supernatural/Fantasy YA novels. However, after a while, she started getting all my nerves with her spoiled behavior. Seriously, you're saying that you don't want to be a princess anymore, yet you get annoyed when you're not getting the perks of the princess you so desparately don't want to be... Can you sense my confusion? But luckily, there were a slew of supporting characters that made up for the annoying princess. I loved them all. The smart, medicinal-knowledged side-kick, the mischievious yet loyal dog, the giant with the huge heart to match, the lovable twins, all great. I was a bit "meh" on Malva's romantic interest. I just didn't click with him and as a result, didn't click with their romance. But the good thing was that the romance didn't really make me roll my eyes the way others do. I guess because the big focal point of the book was the voyage itself and the romance was a subplot. Big plus for me!

I mentioned before that I thought the book was going to be terrible due to other readers' reviews about the ending. I'm not going to say what the ending is as to not spoil anyone. But I do have to say that I don't understand what's so terrible about it. Call me cynical or whatever, but if you're reading a book where a slew of characters go on a dangerous voyage, I kind of think that it's a bit obvious that not all of them are going to make it. Maybe Harry Potter 7 ruined these types of things for me (seriously, that book was bloodbath) so that I'm not shocked anymore when something like that happens. The only time I get annoyed at endings is when they come completely out of left field and you start thinking "How in the world could that possibly happen?!" But for adventure books like this one, I think that the notion that not everyone is going to make it is always a possible outcome. Plus, I don't really need the sweet, sappy, ending.

So, I have to say that I really liked The Princetta. Sure, the heroine was kind of annoying, but the awesome adventure that had me turning the pages more than made up for it. It's not my favorite YA book by any means, but I don't think it's quite deserving of the two and a half star rating it has on Amazon. If a book manages to entertain me and not throw something completely out of left field in order to "shock" the audience, then I'm happy. Maybe I'm just easy... (Not in every sense of the word, thank you very much!) ( )

Personally, I am not one for surprise gifts when they're books. But after I turned the first page of this one, it was very difficult to put down. I even let my mum borrow it and she loved it too; we both cried in all the same places and fell in love with all of the same characters. As a person who isn't normally one for books that aren't in a series, I give it two thumbs up. ( )