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A review by hidekisohma
The Princess Beard by Kevin Hearne, Delilah S. Dawson
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.