Twice Upon a Marigold

Oh goodness I do enjoy these books. I have to admit that they don't have a lot of staying power: I don't know for sure if I read this one before or not. In any case, book 3 is now available to me so I'm glad to read this.

I like how wholesome these are. That may sound all James Dobson or something, but no. There's plenty of exciting adventure, plenty of libertarianism, no Christianity. But things like the servants getting at least equal billing with the royals, and the father being the one who raised you, never mind your genes. Also, I do like the little bits of foreign-language instruction (I hope they're true!).

And I love the anti-violence, anti-revenge message. "It doesn't solve anything. It just perpetuates the problem by making us show more as bad as them. And we don't need any more of them, do we?"

And I love the reinforcement of the message that a married couple needs to be best friends, first & foremost.

For all those compassionate and wise and gentle attitudes, though, they still eat meat. I opine the royals, at least, should be vegetarian. And there are minor missing pieces, fallacies of logic, I must admit. However, if you can not worry about details like that, I do recommend the books.

Btw, it is best to read them in order, but not necessary. And each does end satisfyingly. show less

Satisfying and sweet conclusion to the story of Marigold and Christian. Queen Olympia regains her memory and returns after a year has passed since the end of the first installment of the series. Of course, she wants to return to power and her ambition of being Queen. She quickly acts to jail her opposition. The rest of the kingdom has to figure out how to deal with this strong-willed and ruthless woman.

The first book was pretty funny, but this second one was sort of boring. I think it was the lack of real detail in the action. It was a little too quaint and nice. Definitely too nice. Maybe I'm too much of a gore girl to really enjoy a very bloodless and action less book like this.

Okay I definitely loved this book. Olympia loses her memory and spends a year living in Granolah as Angie, a sweet loving person. She suddenly regains her memory and goes back to her kingdom to cause more trouble. As soon as she arrives she begins to cause trouble again, as if the force of her personality causes people to let her have her way. However this time, Swithbert, Chris and Olympia decide they aren't going to take it (especially since she has Swithbert, Magnus and Ed in prisoned for treason, she plans on hanging them). They spearhead a revolution. In this book we also meet Lazy Susan, Sleeping Beauty's sister, Wendell the magician, Mr. Lacost, and we find out Rollo is not as horrible as he seems.
There are lots of lessons in show more this book about hard work, standing up for what you believe in and that in relationships nothing is perfect, but they don't come across as being shoved down your throat. show less

Okay I definitely loved this book. Olympia loses her memory and spends a year living in Granolah as Angie, a sweet loving person. She suddenly regains her memory and goes back to her kingdom to cause more trouble. As soon as she arrives she begins to cause trouble again, as if the force of her personality causes people to let her have her way. However this time, Swithbert, Chris and Olympia decide they aren't going to take it (especially since she has Swithbert, Magnus and Ed in prisoned for treason, she plans on hanging them). They spearhead a revolution. In this book we also meet Lazy Susan, Sleeping Beauty's sister, Wendell the magician, Mr. Lacost, and we find out Rollo is not as horrible as he seems.
There are lots of lessons in show more this book about hard work, standing up for what you believe in and that in relationships nothing is perfect, but they don't come across as being shoved down your throat. show less

Okay I definitely loved this book. Olympia loses her memory and spends a year living in Granolah as Angie, a sweet loving person. She suddenly regains her memory and goes back to her kingdom to cause more trouble. As soon as she arrives she begins to cause trouble again, as if the force of her personality causes people to let her have her way. However this time, Swithbert, Chris and Olympia decide they aren't going to take it (especially since she has Swithbert, Magnus and Ed in prisoned for treason, she plans on hanging them). They spearhead a revolution. In this book we also meet Lazy Susan, Sleeping Beauty's sister, Wendell the magician, Mr. Lacost, and we find out Rollo is not as horrible as he seems.
There are lots of lessons in show more this book about hard work, standing up for what you believe in and that in relationships nothing is perfect, but they don't come across as being shoved down your throat. show less

I finished the book late last night, and I still haven't entirely gathered my thoughts about it. While I really liked Jean Ferris' writing style, and while I found a lot of the things she had to say cute and uplifting, this book just really didn't measure up to the first. Both books are supposed to be light and fluffy and over-the-top, but somehow this one seemed (at times) almost shallow. I liked the idea of having a sequel (the cutie-patootie ending of Once Upon a Marigold certainly allowed for a second installment) so it's not like I was against the idea of continuing the story. The story that she crafted, however, didnt quite work for me. For example, the two main characters - Christian and Marigold - are practically in the show more background until about the second half of the book, and the perspective follows the main villain, Olympia, almost exclusively in the beginning. That got real old, real fast. And also: her characterizations seem a bit wackier here...as in, these are the same characters from her original story and yet they're not quite the same. Christian and Marigold have suddenly become crabby, and Olympia goes from being a cold-and-calculating kind of evil villain to a spazzy, hyperactive banshee evil villain in the second novel - stuff like that. It just made me frown. And a lot of her conversations seemed really forced - like she was poking her characters with a stick in order to get a reaction out of them! And above all, this book was not NEAR as readable as the first one. Ironically, there's a quote on pg 111 that reads "The next few days passed very, very s-l-o-w-l-y..." and that about sums up my reading experience for the most part. I literally had to *force* myself to keep chugging along, and that annoyed me. I've got to force myself as it is to read class assignments, and I don't particularly like having to do it in my spare reading. The first book flowed so simply; this book was a much rockier ride. - So why am I still giving this 4 stars instead of 3? It has to do with Jean Ferris' quality of writing. There were several flecks of gold in the rocky boulders of this story and some really cute messages to be learned as well. Often nowadays, books are really superficial: there's no lesson to be learned and nothing to be gained once the story ends, but in keeping with fairytale fashion, there are lessons in Twice Upon a Marigold and you just have to admire that. Her characters grew on me - the old ones and the new ones - and by the end of the book, I had my warm, fuzzy feeling again. I would NOT discourage ANYONE from reading Twice Upon a Marigold, but rather I would caution not to expect the same level of superb storytelling found in the first book. show less