Book Review: "Palace of Mirrors" by Margaret Peterson Haddix

SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY

Cecelia is just an orphan who is raised by her nanny in a little village in the country. At least that's what everyone thinks. But she knows better. Sir Stephen, a knight comes and teaches her all the time, teaching her how to be a princess. Him and her nanny have told the story to her often, about how her parents were killed, but before they died, they huddled her off with their most trusted knight. When Cecelia's life is put at risk, she leaves home with her best friend, Harper, to claim the throne. But getting an audience with the fake princess Desmia, is harder than she thought.

OUR CAST OF CHARACTERS

Cecelia dreams of taking the throne. She imagines a life where she can finally be treated as she deserves to be and to have power to affect change in her country. When she is ridiculed and mocked for her poor appearance, she vows revenge.

Harper is Cecelia's best friend who she grew up with. He is forced by his mom to play the harp everyday. Harper is blunt and bold, often telling Cecelia what she needs to hear, even when she doesn't want to hear it. And although he acts tough, he is actually quite sensitive, often withdrawing from Cecelia when she hurts his feelings, or saying something sarcastic to hide his pain.

Desmia is the fake princess, or maybe the real one. She is timid and fearful, admitting she cannot trust anyone in her life. Not her nanny, and not Lord Throckmorton.

Ella Brown is from the neighboring kingdom. She is here with her fiance to negotiate peace and end the war with her home country. Ella is also training to be a doctor. She is Desmia's only confidant and eventually earns the respect and friendship of Cecelia.

PACING

The pacing goes back in forth. In the beginning, it reminded me of a Gail Carson Levine book, setting the tone and informing the reader all about the main character's history and personality. It actually takes eight chapters for Cecelia to leave home.

From there it picks up. Although I wouldn't say it's an action novel. As parts of the book are sneaking around, looking for a way into the palace, or hoping to be rescued. But it's full of drama and mystery that keep the story going.

THEME-SPOILERS

A large theme is that of deserving. Cecelia feels so entitled to be a princess that it often causes her to rise to anger and jealousy. She is envious of Desmia to the point where it engulfs her, and her desire for revenge at being mistreated is referred to multiple times. She views this same attribute in the other girls that she meets and it wakes her up to the truth: she isn't entitled to anything.

Another theme is the idol of chasing perfection, believing you will happy once you get something better than what you have. Cecelia believes that once she is princess, she will have the perfect life. She doesn't imagine any of the problems that Desmia tells her of. Even at the end of the book, she realizes nothing was what it seemed. She learns to be content with who she is, and the life she is living.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Through the first half of the story, we learn that Cecelia feels she deserves more than what she has, being that she is a princess. But this evolves into anger and a strong desire on revenge on those who have wronged her. She is actually quite selfish. But because she has to go through many trials, and shows genuine worry and love for Harper, it doesn't overwhelm the reader and keep us from liking her. We may see her selfishness, but we also see it comes from her naivete and mistreatment and through new revelations, she must learn and change.

HARPER & CECELIA

One of my favorite aspects of the book is their relationship. This isn't a romance story with adventure, it's an adventure story with hints throughout the story that the two have romantic feelings for each other. It isn't flowery and dramatic, but very down to earth. Cecelia recounts how they grew up together, and have always been best friends. But now that they are teenagers, she feels their relationship is changing.

When Cecelia is selfish and bratty, Harper calls her out. He balances her well, and although he loves her, he doesn't indulge her bad behavior or ignore it. There were many scenes were they had problems communicating, which I'm sure most couple's can relate to. Haddix shines in this aspect of her reading. Just as Ella's relationship with Jed was real, rather than dramatic and exaggerated, in “Just Ella”.

She easily portrays couples as two imperfect individuals, who need to learn to understand and love each other better. There is no perfect couple, perfect ending, or perfect life. I admire this refreshing honesty in a culture of narcissism and hedonism, where we are told that we deserve the best and we are perfect the way we are.

EXPLICIT CONTENT-SPOILERS

Desmia's life is threatened by her so called adviser. Men are shown in a sad state, having been tortured.

CONCLUSION

Haddix creates an original twist on “the hidden princess” idea with characters that develop and face their own flaws. The story is decently paced and the romance between Harper and Cecelia is sweet and innocent. I give “Palace of Mirrors” four stars.

What do you think? Did you read this book? Agree or disagree with me on any points? Please let me know!

Book Review: "Double Identity" by Margaret Peterson Haddix

SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY

Bethany lives a relatively normal life with her two overprotective parents. That is, until they drive for days and drop her off with an Aunt she never knew she had. Her parents won't tell her why, but her mom has been breaking into tears for no apparent reason for a long time. And then there's the mysterious girl named Elizabeth. Who was she? Bethany is determined to find out.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Bethany is twelve year old girl from Pennsylvania. She is an only child, rather spoiled by her parents, but at the same time overly sheltered. She has never even spent a night away from them.

Aunt Myrie is the aunt that Bethany never knew she had. She is kind but rather hesitant. She seems to know an awful lot about what Bethany likes, considering they have never met.

Joss is Aunt Myrie's daughter. She is a pastor who is quite blunt and honest. She ends up telling Bethany all about Elizabeth.

PACING

The pacing is decent. We get thrown right into the story, starting with the drive and being left with Aunt Myrie. There is time in between investigating about Elizabeth, but we learn a lot about Bethany and her relationship with her parents. Haddix piles up enough questions where we keep wanting to learn more.

THEMES

A large theme of the book is the desire for freedom. Bethany feels trapped with her Aunt, unable to live her normal life. When new revelations occur, she no longer feels like she is her own person, with her own choices.

There are questions about morality in what her parents did, and her existence. The conversations Bethany has with Joss are nice, but lack depth. We may never know...so don't ask questions. Really? It's kind of a big deal. I understand the desire to forgive her parents, but morality is still an issue.

You can believe someone did something wrong and still forgive them. “Don't worry, be happy” is kind of vague advice from a pastor (I understand it about the-wondering why some die and others live-question). I was kind of expecting something deeper, maybe even biblical. It would have added depth to the story if Bethany came to moral conclusion about her parents' actions, and had to learn to forgive them and love them.

AWKWARD NARRATION

Haddix has the habit of trying to tie in past experiences to current events of the book. But this often comes off awkward, taking you out of the story to tell an anecdote that could easily be skipped.

Like when Bethany recalls a student who wrote a paper saying that teenagers aren't bad, it's just that parents are over-protective. It felt awkward and unnecessary. A paper? Why not just have Bethany realize that she was responsible and her parents never gave her credit. The idea that teenagers as a group are are well-behaved is silly. Teenagers are individuals. The whole point she was trying to make failed, simply because she reached too far.

Another time, when her mom calls her from a gas station, Bethany recalls a government intuitive to give cell phones to gas stations so anyone can use them. What? Whose heard of this? It was so random that it made me think, did that really happen? It pulled me out of the story. Why not just say she had a burner phone? An old pay phone? Something that everyone has heard of.

THIS NEVER HAPPENS

There are multiple times where she tries to reference Bethany's past to make it seem as though she is overly sheltered by her parents, but they don't seem to align with reality.

Because she was around her parents a lot, she never learned to lie? How does that make sense?

She wasn't allowed to trick-or-treat without a parent at twelve and younger? Neither were the rest of the children of America.

When she talks about bad parents she witnesses, she talks of parents smacking around their toddlers, and yelling at their teenagers to stop bugging them. Again, who see's these parents? I just witness kids having tantrums and parents' ignoring them or bribing them to stop.

Bethany never got a babysitter, because her parents were always around. Sounds terrible. She must have really suffered. I think I had a babysitter a whole four times in my childhood. I turned out okay.

There were enough instances where I was rolling my eyes, and thinking, “What is she talking about?”.

A VILLAIN?

The man who might be the villain is shown later on in the book, but it's so cheesy that it's hard to take it seriously. Van Dyne fired someone who spilled coffee? Bragged about firing a huge group of people on Christmas? Who does this? Is this “A Christmas Carol”? No one acts this way. Even when big corporations screw their employees, they don't brag about it. They coach it in fluffy language. They want people to work for them, after all, and to buy their products.

And then we get a quote saying that he loves adulation. Again, who talks that way? People who love attention don't go around saying “I love adulation”, anymore than jerks call themselves jerks. They say they “can be demanding” or they “are perfectionists.” They sugar-coat it. Just like their friends and family do.

CLIMAX-SPOILERS

Bethany's parents sound really screwed up. The more we learn about them the more we think that maybe they are nuts. Bethany says as much. But we never get a confrontation scene. This disappointed me. I wanted them to see how broken she was. But their relationship is only referenced after the story, in the epilogue. I like how she reveals the truth about herself in public in the climax, as if she is letting go of her anger, but I really wanted a scene with her parents.

CONCLUSION

Haddix creates an intriguing mystery with a decent main character, but unfortunately it's bogged down by awkward narration and some weird anecdotes that pull the reader out of the story. It would have been nice to dive deeper into issues of morality. I give “Double Identity” three stars.

What do you think? Did you read this book? Agree or disagree with me? Have any other points you think I missed? Please let me know!

Book Review: "Just Ella" by Margaret Peterson Haddix

SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY

We all know the story of Cinderella. But this author asks the question, what if Cinderella didn't live happily ever after? What if she discovered life in the palace was not at all what she expected? What if the prince wasn't so charming after all?

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Ella isn't like the Cinderella we know. She sneaked to the ball just to spite her stepmother and didn't put much thought into to it. She realizes her lack of thought and as the story progresses she grows as she realizes this isn't a life she wants. Her character development is definitely a strength of the story.

Jed ends up teaching Ella the rules of the state religion. But they spend more time getting to know each other and Ella discovers that only he will talk to her as an equal and be honest with her.

Mary is a young servant girl who becomes friends with Ella. She is only other person besides Jed who is honest and forthright with Ella.

Prince Charming is not in the story much. But when his personality is revealed...it's shocking.

Madame Bisset is the woman who oversees every aspect of Ella's new life. She is commanding, stern and unbending and it's later revealed she wasn't always a noble who worked in the palace.

FLASHBACKS

There is one use of a flashback as Ella tells Jed the true story about who she really is. This takes of two chapters that are not short, but not dull either. We get a little insight into Ella's past life.

MOOD/THEME

If I could put my finger on a mood, I'd day: absurdity. It sounds weird, but from the first page, we learn of the insane rules that royalty must follow and we want to scream. When we see who the prince really is and how he reacts to Ella's announcements. When Ella gets to finally go outside and see a tournament. We start to feel as though she is living in an asylum.

LANGUAGE

I am assuming this fairy tale takes place in a land long ago, and the speech should probably be more formal, since most other aspects of the story reflect history. Like woman not being able to read, people not marrying outside their social class, and traditions and standards being strictly enforced. In this culture, a few phrases seem glaringly out of place, like Ella thinking, I gave him my “you've got to be kidding, look.” And when they first meet, Jed keeps saying “dang” which feels a little out of place as well making him sound like an American hick rather than a teacher of nobles and royalty.

REBEL ELLA

In the flashback, Haddix tries to paint Ella not just a servant, but a rebel as well. But it comes across a bit awkwardly as Ella lectures her stepmother from her first line. She comes across as holier-than-thou, instead of spirited. Also, when she see's her stepmother one last time, she says she hopes that “She dies in her own filth”. These lines just feel forced and make Ella seem slightly obnoxious in these scenes. Luckily, they are few. Ella's anger is understandable, but we want our heroine to be someone we can admire. Not a girl who takes her anger, holds onto it until death, and excitedly expresses it.
To be fair though, Ella does note later that her anger might have been foolish. It's just that it could have been expressed in a way that felt more natural and less obnoxious.

CHARACTER DRIVEN

I would say this is another story that is character-driven, instead of plot-driven. I have discovered a pattern with these stories. They often have less action and more time in conversation or thought, making discoveries that change a character and force growth. Although there is some action in the last part of the book and plenty of suspense halfway through the story. It's Ella's development that pushes the story forward.

She notes the absurdity of palace life and it causes problems.

She realizes she was only infatuated with the prince and that pushes the story forward.

It's her decision to rebel and use the strength she bottled up against her stepmother, that pushes the story forward.

Every turn the story takes is because of her decisions.

BISSET AND THE PRINCE

Neither character is delved in too deeply although there are hints that there is more to them than meets the eye. Haddix hints that Bisset is more than meets the eye when she tells Ella that “she won't mess everything up for her”. Ella wonders how she became this way and who she used to be. Because she is more of villain in the book than her stepmother, I wish we could have learned more of her. I wish Ella would have asked. I could easily see Bisset telling her just to make her grateful for her position as the prince's fiance.

EVIL IS STUPID

A character introduced to guard Ella is supposedly a criminal, and is presented as an animal with little intelligence. It came across more as comically creepy than frightening. It really lacked dimension, as though to do something truly awful, one must be an imbecile. He is a minor character, but it would have helped the story if he had shown some intelligence.

ELLA AND BEAUTY

Ella seems confused as to why beauty is important to people. To her, it's an annoyance. She recalls a boy who wouldn't leave her alone. I thought this view was rather unrealistic. I think the story would have been better served if Ella, like the majority of girls, simply didn't believe she is pretty. When you see the same face everyday, it's easy to notice flaws that no one else sees. I was surprised she didn't take this angle. It seemed obvious that most readers would find a girl who complains about how men think she is pretty, is rather far-fetched. Luckily, this subject is only briefly touched upon.

EXPLICIT CONTENT

Ella makes multiple references to her father only marrying her stepmother for sexual reasons.
When Ella meets a guard it is implied that he will rape her if she disobeys.

CONCLUSION

Even with my criticisms, I think the characters are mostly likable, and the story is original and interesting. I give “Just Ella” four stars.

What do you think? Did you read this book? Agree or disagree with me on any points? Please let me know!