Scan barcode
lostinagoodbook's review against another edition
4.0
Disclaimer: I received this book free from Netgalley
You know what I hate about this book? The fact that this is the third one in the series and I never got around to reading the first two! I saw them on Netgalley, and never picked them up and I could just kick myself. I LOVED this book!
What a joy this book was. Irreverent, silly and hilarious. I found myself literally laughing out loud. I would read lines out to my 11 year old daughter and she giggled like a fiend. We both really enjoyed it and now thanks to this book we call the box holding my cats litter box the “boom boom room”. One of the things I love about this book is that while it is so funny it is also inclusive. See comedy isn’t dead just because we expect more from comedians than the old tired way of punching down on people who are marginalized.
You won’t be sorry if you get a copy of this book, I had a ton of fun reading it. It sped by and kept my interest the entire time. Now I just need to buy the first two in the series!
You know what I hate about this book? The fact that this is the third one in the series and I never got around to reading the first two! I saw them on Netgalley, and never picked them up and I could just kick myself. I LOVED this book!
What a joy this book was. Irreverent, silly and hilarious. I found myself literally laughing out loud. I would read lines out to my 11 year old daughter and she giggled like a fiend. We both really enjoyed it and now thanks to this book we call the box holding my cats litter box the “boom boom room”. One of the things I love about this book is that while it is so funny it is also inclusive. See comedy isn’t dead just because we expect more from comedians than the old tired way of punching down on people who are marginalized.
You won’t be sorry if you get a copy of this book, I had a ton of fun reading it. It sped by and kept my interest the entire time. Now I just need to buy the first two in the series!
katietopp's review against another edition
4.0
Probably my least favorite of the three. But still quite funny and quirky like the others. Hoping for another installment in the series!
spalmer24's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
wanderlustqueen's review against another edition
4.0
Good palate cleanser after 'You'. Funny, but a little on the nose at times.
loganslovelylibrary's review against another edition
4.0
The Princess Beard was a great conclusion to the Tales of Pell series. Funny and entertaining, it once again throws fairytale and fantasy references at you left and right. It featured well written characters, but the plot was a little all over the place in the beginning. The group felt a bit disjointed until over halfway through; it was a wild ride but still an enjoyable one. I loved seeing the characters from the other books sprinkled in here and there, and everything wrapped up beautifully. Such a refreshing and funny read! A great series that I highly recommend!
katreniah's review against another edition
4.0
I've enjoyed every book in the series, but I think this one is my favorite - although I'm struggling to come up with specific reasons why. As in the first two books, the characters each have their own challenges to overcome and need to work together toward a common goal. However, it felt like this group became closer, more tight-knit than the groups in the previous books. I know I'm not explaining it well, because I'm still trying to work it out in my mind. But if you like Monty Pythonesque humor where you have to read words out loud to fully get the humor, this series is totally up your alley and absolutely worth it.
hidekisohma's review against another edition
2.0
The biggest thing I can say about this book was that it tried too hard. I found this in the library in the new section, and as i don't normally read books that JUST came out, I decided to give it a read. The first few pages looked interesting and i like fantasies that treat themselves differently than the normal Tolkien fare. However, this book... well... the best way to describe it, is that it GRAZED the marks, but didn't really hit any of them.
So the first and most glaring problem with this book are the out of place, cultural references and anachronisms. The authors of this book don't seem to understand that a reference in and of itself, is not funny.
Here is a short list of "quirky" references
- they meet a guy named robin and they introduce him to his son as robin's son crusoe.
- one of the characters for really no reason goes "life uh, finds a way"
- their cannon is called the "tampoon" named aunt flo' and is fired by a pirate named Mo Tryn
- a pirate's name is Quort Quobain.
These things..they're not jokes. they're not funny. they're literally just references. they're references to things that don't even exist in this universe so that makes it even stranger. One of the main plot points is even that there's a chain of restaurants called "Dinny's."
The best way i can describe these references is like you're driving in a car, going about 40 but every few blocks you have to hit the brakes because a red light pops out of nowhere.
You're reading a relatively decent fun story about pirates and magic and then it comes to a SCREECHING halt because they feel the need to make a 3 page joke about how hogwarts is silly. Yes i'm dead serious.
There are other problems too. The other biggest one is the pacing. It's hard to describe but it's both rushed and very slow at the same time. There's 5 main characters all with different motivations and story arcs to go through. So they're trying to introduce these characters, have us feel for them, send them on a journey of self discovery, and wrap all their storylines up in 360 pages. That's not nearly enough time.
And therein lies the problem. While the characters were somewhat interesting to START, I didn't care enough about their journeys because i didn't get to know enough about THEM. This needed to be at LEAST another book for me to actually care about any of them.
I didn't really get ANYBODY'S inner workings or their motivations, or anything like that. I just kind of..guessed what they wanted as their motivations were very...simple and boring.
Intersperced throughout the story there were also very juvenile jokes. the afformentioned period joke, jokes about butts, balls, poop, etc were abound in this book. Which really left me the question of WHO this was written for. I don't understand the target audience for this book. It was trying to be risque yet childish at the same time with no real direction. it was written by two people and it really feels like it. Everything really seems haphazard about the writing and it just doesn't work.
It makes me sad because i liked the idea and the characters were cute as well at first, but they don't really develop or grow, they get stale, and i don't feel like they're ALIVE. Like, i couldn't get into any of their heads and everything seemed very quickly resolved and yet boring. When you use the word "Swole" to describe your medieval centaur for the 37th time, it gets very frustrating. I wish i had kept track on how many times they called him Swole. needless to say, if i got a dollar for every time they said it, i could have bought this book several times over.
Overall, i SEE what they were trying to do, but the execution just wasn't there. it needed more time to flesh out the characters, give some of them more likable or at least DEEP personalities, and for the love of GOD drop the references. they're NOT FUNNY. I wanted to give this book a 2.5/5 but since Goodreads doesn't do 1/2 stars i have to round it down. it doesn't deserve a 3 to be honest. 2.5/5 rounded down to a 2.
So the first and most glaring problem with this book are the out of place, cultural references and anachronisms. The authors of this book don't seem to understand that a reference in and of itself, is not funny.
Here is a short list of "quirky" references
- they meet a guy named robin and they introduce him to his son as robin's son crusoe.
- one of the characters for really no reason goes "life uh, finds a way"
- their cannon is called the "tampoon" named aunt flo' and is fired by a pirate named Mo Tryn
- a pirate's name is Quort Quobain.
These things..they're not jokes. they're not funny. they're literally just references. they're references to things that don't even exist in this universe so that makes it even stranger. One of the main plot points is even that there's a chain of restaurants called "Dinny's."
The best way i can describe these references is like you're driving in a car, going about 40 but every few blocks you have to hit the brakes because a red light pops out of nowhere.
You're reading a relatively decent fun story about pirates and magic and then it comes to a SCREECHING halt because they feel the need to make a 3 page joke about how hogwarts is silly. Yes i'm dead serious.
There are other problems too. The other biggest one is the pacing. It's hard to describe but it's both rushed and very slow at the same time. There's 5 main characters all with different motivations and story arcs to go through. So they're trying to introduce these characters, have us feel for them, send them on a journey of self discovery, and wrap all their storylines up in 360 pages. That's not nearly enough time.
And therein lies the problem. While the characters were somewhat interesting to START, I didn't care enough about their journeys because i didn't get to know enough about THEM. This needed to be at LEAST another book for me to actually care about any of them.
I didn't really get ANYBODY'S inner workings or their motivations, or anything like that. I just kind of..guessed what they wanted as their motivations were very...simple and boring.
Intersperced throughout the story there were also very juvenile jokes. the afformentioned period joke, jokes about butts, balls, poop, etc were abound in this book. Which really left me the question of WHO this was written for. I don't understand the target audience for this book. It was trying to be risque yet childish at the same time with no real direction. it was written by two people and it really feels like it. Everything really seems haphazard about the writing and it just doesn't work.
It makes me sad because i liked the idea and the characters were cute as well at first, but they don't really develop or grow, they get stale, and i don't feel like they're ALIVE. Like, i couldn't get into any of their heads and everything seemed very quickly resolved and yet boring. When you use the word "Swole" to describe your medieval centaur for the 37th time, it gets very frustrating. I wish i had kept track on how many times they called him Swole. needless to say, if i got a dollar for every time they said it, i could have bought this book several times over.
Overall, i SEE what they were trying to do, but the execution just wasn't there. it needed more time to flesh out the characters, give some of them more likable or at least DEEP personalities, and for the love of GOD drop the references. they're NOT FUNNY. I wanted to give this book a 2.5/5 but since Goodreads doesn't do 1/2 stars i have to round it down. it doesn't deserve a 3 to be honest. 2.5/5 rounded down to a 2.