A review by rheren
The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald

4.0

The beginning of this book is incredibly good: deep and thought-provoking. And I'm not saying "thought-provoking for a children's story", I mean thought-provoking compared to any other book. Over and over again I found myself copying out passages that I wanted to remember from the first few chapters. But once the story got going, I wasn't as impressed: it was somewhat interesting, but relies so heavily on the "unlikely heroes" (I won't spoil the story by being more specific) that it felt like a Deus ex machina. Also after the first few chapters there's not much character development anymore: everyone becomes simplistic characters that don't really change as the book goes on. I know it's just a children's book, but the beginning is so amazing that I was disappointed. Worth reading for those first few chapters, though.