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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Need to own
I was happy to pick up this third (and apparently final) entry into the Princess Academy series. I liked the new characters, and also liked getting more Miri and finding out what was going on with all her friends.
The plot of the new story was interesting, although I felt it dragged a bit and the characters were a bit slow to figure out some of the connections.
Still, it's a good middle-grade tale and I'd still recommend the series.
The plot of the new story was interesting, although I felt it dragged a bit and the characters were a bit slow to figure out some of the connections.
Still, it's a good middle-grade tale and I'd still recommend the series.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ok I’m kind of mixed on this one but I did like it overall.
Hale continues to be an amazing author with vivid descriptions, dialogue, and worldbuilding.
Overall I see where Hale is trying to go with this— the whole point is Miri has learned all of these tools from books one and two that she can now use to help other places that are as fortunate/less fortunate than her own province was but I’m not sure it’s hitting the mark that Hale thought she was hitting.
Like, I’m still doubting whether this book needed to be written at all. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, I just don’t think it needed to exist.
Part of me doesn’t like it because surprise! There’s another threat of war. I feel like it worked in the first two books pretty well but now it feels like Hale is threatening war just to give Miri a reason to do stuff. And I get that she’s trying to make a political commentary about how there’s always kind of a threat to kingdoms/governments but I don’t like how in the same breath she’s like “there might be war and the only way to prevent it is if Miri does this very specific thing!!” Because it feels like she’s borrowing from that dystopian “teenage girl vs the world” mentality that this series doesn’t really need. I will say though that Hale actually followed through with the war so it was interesting to see how it played out.
Also I think that, once again, it’s trying to do this “Miri is a fish out of water” thing again and that doesn’t really work for me. It worked better in the first two books because it was all leading up to Miri’s overall growth but I’m not sure how much this situation is supposed to help her grow — is it to re-humble her? Have her remember her roots as a former poor person?
Like I said earlier, it’s doing political intrigue in a nuanced-ish way but it all feels like a rip off of Palace of Stone. I think that bits and pieces of the political commentary are good, but I think altogether it just feels disjointed which is really disappointing because the commentary in Palace of Stone was really good. I think part of that is Hale is trying to establish in universe politics (so she doesn’t have time to make general commentary) but I think where she struggled a bit was she tried to establish these politics all in this book while everything is happening instead of spreading it out among books 2 and 3, which I think would’ve helped her establish it better.
What I like about the Princess Academy series is that each book is technically its own story. You still have to read them in order for continuity and context but I like that each book technically focuses on its own story. However, one of the cons of this format is every individual story has to be super compelling and this book took me a lot longer to be compelled by, however, I do think that the ending is sweet and the epilogue was circular in a really fun way.
In a surprising turn of events, my favorite Princess Academy book is the second one. Usually second books are the WORST because they often act as a poorly written bridge between the beginning and finale but that absolutely wasn’t the case here.
***spoiler section***
To elaborate on the political commentary I mentioned, I think the overall message is supposed to be “even if there’s prosperity in your province/in other places because of revolution, it doesn’t mean there’s equality everywhere” which is SUCH a good message but the fact that Miri waltzes in and is then like “let me fix the issues of this province”, like I’m glad she’s fixing it and all but a) that is going against the message and b) it’s not like Miri can just go everywhere and magically solve everyone’s problems. (To be fair no one in the book knew that the swamp, the main setting in this book, was as bad as it is but I still think my point stands that Miri can’t exactly make sure that every region is keeping good on their promises.)
I think Hale should’ve made Princess Academy a duology tbh, I think the second book functions well as a finale. However if she did write a third book, I think it would’ve been more interesting to have it be more about Miri going back to Mount Eskel and trying to live a provincial life with Peder. Now that she’s experienced the city, how can she return to a rural life? Can she settle/does she want to settle? If not, is it realistic to keep going back and forth between Mount Eskel/Asland? I think that would’ve been a better way to continue Miri’s growth cycle than this book.
However, since we have this book, I don’t think it was a poor sequel, in fact, I quite enjoyed it for the most part.
Hale continues to be an amazing author with vivid descriptions, dialogue, and worldbuilding.
Overall I see where Hale is trying to go with this— the whole point is Miri has learned all of these tools from books one and two that she can now use to help other places that are as fortunate/less fortunate than her own province was but I’m not sure it’s hitting the mark that Hale thought she was hitting.
Like, I’m still doubting whether this book needed to be written at all. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, I just don’t think it needed to exist.
Part of me doesn’t like it because surprise! There’s another threat of war. I feel like it worked in the first two books pretty well but now it feels like Hale is threatening war just to give Miri a reason to do stuff. And I get that she’s trying to make a political commentary about how there’s always kind of a threat to kingdoms/governments but I don’t like how in the same breath she’s like “there might be war and the only way to prevent it is if Miri does this very specific thing!!” Because it feels like she’s borrowing from that dystopian “teenage girl vs the world” mentality that this series doesn’t really need. I will say though that Hale actually followed through with the war so it was interesting to see how it played out.
Also I think that, once again, it’s trying to do this “Miri is a fish out of water” thing again and that doesn’t really work for me. It worked better in the first two books because it was all leading up to Miri’s overall growth but I’m not sure how much this situation is supposed to help her grow — is it to re-humble her? Have her remember her roots as a former poor person?
Like I said earlier, it’s doing political intrigue in a nuanced-ish way but it all feels like a rip off of Palace of Stone. I think that bits and pieces of the political commentary are good, but I think altogether it just feels disjointed which is really disappointing because the commentary in Palace of Stone was really good. I think part of that is Hale is trying to establish in universe politics (so she doesn’t have time to make general commentary) but I think where she struggled a bit was she tried to establish these politics all in this book while everything is happening instead of spreading it out among books 2 and 3, which I think would’ve helped her establish it better.
What I like about the Princess Academy series is that each book is technically its own story. You still have to read them in order for continuity and context but I like that each book technically focuses on its own story. However, one of the cons of this format is every individual story has to be super compelling and this book took me a lot longer to be compelled by, however, I do think that the ending is sweet and the epilogue was circular in a really fun way.
In a surprising turn of events, my favorite Princess Academy book is the second one. Usually second books are the WORST because they often act as a poorly written bridge between the beginning and finale but that absolutely wasn’t the case here.
***spoiler section***
To elaborate on the political commentary I mentioned, I think the overall message is supposed to be “even if there’s prosperity in your province/in other places because of revolution, it doesn’t mean there’s equality everywhere” which is SUCH a good message but the fact that Miri waltzes in and is then like “let me fix the issues of this province”, like I’m glad she’s fixing it and all but a) that is going against the message and b) it’s not like Miri can just go everywhere and magically solve everyone’s problems. (To be fair no one in the book knew that the swamp, the main setting in this book, was as bad as it is but I still think my point stands that Miri can’t exactly make sure that every region is keeping good on their promises.)
I think Hale should’ve made Princess Academy a duology tbh, I think the second book functions well as a finale. However if she did write a third book, I think it would’ve been more interesting to have it be more about Miri going back to Mount Eskel and trying to live a provincial life with Peder. Now that she’s experienced the city, how can she return to a rural life? Can she settle/does she want to settle? If not, is it realistic to keep going back and forth between Mount Eskel/Asland? I think that would’ve been a better way to continue Miri’s growth cycle than this book.
However, since we have this book, I don’t think it was a poor sequel, in fact, I quite enjoyed it for the most part.
meh. not as good as the first, not as bad as the second. maybe worth a half star more.
This final Princess Academy novel improves in its back half, but for too long it doesn't really feel organically motivated as a continuation of the first two volumes. There aren't any lingering plot threads that get picked up here, and the most interesting new developments can't help but read like retcons of the setting's history. Although still a solid early YA piece that delivers a great conclusion for the story at hand, it's a little lacking in the wider impact one might expect for the apparent sendoff to these characters and their world.
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--Subscribe at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke to support these reviews and weigh in on what I read next!--
Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter