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A review by katykelly
The Restless Girls by Jessie Burton
5.0
Encouraging fairytale for a modern audience, sisters 'doing it for themselves'.
This reads like a typical fairytale, the structure, style and speech. The plot is familiar - a dead queen, distraught king, and princesses locked away for their own safety...
But it is our twelve sisters who make this a different kind of fairytale. Unusually for a fairy story, Burton goes to the trouble of giving each princess a name, a character, a personality and a voice in the story, though some feature more strongly than others.
The King is mourning his wife, dead in a car accident (she loved fast cars), and to keep his daughters safe, he slowly takes away their loves - a telescope, art equipment, books, everything they lived for. Until all that is left for them is a room with twelve beds.
Until they manage to find a way out of the confines and live. But it wouldn't be a fairy story without some conflict.
This was never going to be a story about twelve sisters finding twelve princes to marry them, it is clear from the first pages that the princesses are young women with aspirations, opinions and a bond that brings them strength.
I enjoyed immensely their arguments with their father, the feminist aspect coming out that I want young girls to see in fairy stories, not just a girl needing rescuing, marriage or both.
The fantastical elements of the story never appealed to me, but that's my own taste, it was always the bond between the sisters and their long-standing battle for freedom and choice that caught me up in this.
Burton's style suits a fairy tale down to the ground. It felt traditional and familiar, but at the same time incredibly modern in the attitudes of the princesses. They even say at one point that being a princess is actually pretty boring (something I've always thought it must be!), and each aspires to something much more, more useful, more interesting and more challenging.
Unfortunately, as mine was a review copy, I cannot comment on the illustrations, as my copy was mostly without them. Those I did see had a very nostalgic fairy tale look, complementing the text. It will look wonderful fully illustrated.
I would recommend this to every young lady out there, and hope to encourage boys to try this and see how they feel about girls being shut away and not being treated as equals.
For ages 9 and above, and if being read aloud, for listeners aged 7+.
Superb choice for class/family discussions.
With thanks to the publisher for providing a sample reading copy.
This reads like a typical fairytale, the structure, style and speech. The plot is familiar - a dead queen, distraught king, and princesses locked away for their own safety...
But it is our twelve sisters who make this a different kind of fairytale. Unusually for a fairy story, Burton goes to the trouble of giving each princess a name, a character, a personality and a voice in the story, though some feature more strongly than others.
The King is mourning his wife, dead in a car accident (she loved fast cars), and to keep his daughters safe, he slowly takes away their loves - a telescope, art equipment, books, everything they lived for. Until all that is left for them is a room with twelve beds.
Until they manage to find a way out of the confines and live. But it wouldn't be a fairy story without some conflict.
This was never going to be a story about twelve sisters finding twelve princes to marry them, it is clear from the first pages that the princesses are young women with aspirations, opinions and a bond that brings them strength.
I enjoyed immensely their arguments with their father, the feminist aspect coming out that I want young girls to see in fairy stories, not just a girl needing rescuing, marriage or both.
The fantastical elements of the story never appealed to me, but that's my own taste, it was always the bond between the sisters and their long-standing battle for freedom and choice that caught me up in this.
Burton's style suits a fairy tale down to the ground. It felt traditional and familiar, but at the same time incredibly modern in the attitudes of the princesses. They even say at one point that being a princess is actually pretty boring (something I've always thought it must be!), and each aspires to something much more, more useful, more interesting and more challenging.
Unfortunately, as mine was a review copy, I cannot comment on the illustrations, as my copy was mostly without them. Those I did see had a very nostalgic fairy tale look, complementing the text. It will look wonderful fully illustrated.
I would recommend this to every young lady out there, and hope to encourage boys to try this and see how they feel about girls being shut away and not being treated as equals.
For ages 9 and above, and if being read aloud, for listeners aged 7+.
Superb choice for class/family discussions.
With thanks to the publisher for providing a sample reading copy.