The Princess Blog

There are many modern feminist adaptations of classic Shakespeare plays . One such movie is Rosaline , a comedic retelling of Romeo and Juliet  from the perspective of Juliet's jilted cousin from 2022. In 2018, Ophelia , a more serious take on Hamlet,  unveiled the perspective of Hamlet's ill-fated lover. Now, the concept of rewriting Shakespeare is taking over the Eastern world with the anime movie, Scarlet . This film is a creative and original feminist take on Hamlet , in which the titular character is gender-bent into a vengeful princess who traipses through the underworld in search of her wicked uncle. After witnessing her father's execution, Princess Scarlet is poisoned before she has the opportunity to enact her revenge. She wakes up in the underworld, where she undergoes a transformation into a warrior princess  and searches tirelessly for the undead spirits of her father and uncle. She encounters Hijiri, a paramedic from the modern world, who helps her see beyond...

After joining a review team for one of Rachel Huffmire 's upcoming books, I decided to familiarize myself with her first series, The Mirror Chronicles. Unfortunately, the fourth book in the series was probably not the best place to start. Unlike many other fairy tale series I've read, Saving Winter  does not work as a standalone at all. I've discovered in the past that the science fiction genre does not blend well with fairy tales , and this ARC was no exception. The book is loosely based on "The Snow Queen,"  but I found little similarity to it despite the quoted Hans Christian Andersen passages at the beginning of each chapter, which seemed out of place. Regardless of whether or not it followed the fairy tale, this was not a pleasant reading experience in general. While it could be because I didn't read the rest of the series, I found it exceedingly difficult to keep track of the characters and plot in this book. This would normally be the place where I sh...

I received a review copy of A Kiss and Dare  by Charlene Raddon  and completed it just in time to write my review on National Princess Day (Happy National Princess Day, by the way). This book is a fairytale izekai, or "portal fantasy," story , a genre that has exploded in popularity, in which a character from one world is transported to another one that they are unfamiliar with. Typically, the character is either from the real world or travels to it. In this case, it is the latter. The timing of this review is particularly appropriate because  Disenchanted  comes on on Disney+ today, which is the sequel to another fairytale izekai film . A Kiss and a Dare is actually more of a time travel story than a full portal fantasy, but the lines between fantasy and reality get blurry when you throw magic into the mix. Gwenlyn is a young Welsh woman from the medieval era who was cursed by a witch to become a frog, and she can only break the spell by kissing her true love. It i...

Golden Age, the newest visual novel in Time Princess  is a celebration of the game's massive collaboration with the Louvre Museum in Paris. It is the second story since Queen Marie to take place in France and covers three different time periods. Even though it involves time travel in Paris, it doesn't have much in common with other time travel stories like Find Me in Paris  because the main character spends half the book as one person in one time period and the other half as a different person in another time period, so she doesn't jump around forming contradictions in the timeline. The story has a lot in common with Time Princess itself in that it involves a girl who lives in different people's bodies during a significant turning point in their life. Art is the main focus of this novel, which is why the modern incarnation of the protagonist is an art curator, similar to the main character in Whispers of the Rain . Golden Age begins with an art curator named Anais try...

Magic in Mauve  by Nonona Gerikh is a book that appeared in my inbox as if by magic. It is a similar take on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants  with a more feminine flair since the traveling clothing item in question is a frilly mauve skirt that makes its way to a number of women around the world including a Middle Eastern princess. The book is a quick read that doesn't spend a lot of time delving into the lives of each woman who was touched by the "magical" skirt, which makes it a light-hearted book for a rainy afternoon. I would recommend this to someone who is looking for a quick fix of female empowerment and doesn't want to think too hard. Magic in Mauve  has four and a half-ish protagonists, but its real starring role goes to the mauve skirt that brings them all together. The skirt is crafted by a woman named Monique, who dreams of her magical wedding and honeymoon as she lovingly chooses the fabric and assembles it on her sewing machine. Her dream of marria...

A Kiss in Time  by Alex Flinn is one of several "Sleeping Beauty" adaptations that was recommended to me from  the last adaptation I reviewed before moving into my new castle . You might say I was "sleeping" on the recommendations (queue the crickets). This book stood out to me because it sounded similar to the  Fae Bloodlines duology that I just completed and loved. Both books are about a princess from a magical medieval world who falls in love with a modern-day teenage boy from our world. Fae Away  is a better book overall with a deeper and more fulfilling love story. Still, A Kiss in Time  is not without its charm. It's a fun and easy read that would appeal to younger readers than most of the other books I review and would be perfect for middle schoolers who want to get an early start on YA fiction. This book begins just like "Sleeping Beauty." A princess named Talia is cursed to prick her finger on a spindle before she turns 16 and take the ent...

My recent interest in Tudor history with The Spanish Princess and Six the Musical inspired me to read the second book in Kathryn Lasky's Tangled in Time  duology . If you forgot or missed my previous review, this limited series is about a middle school girl named Rose Ashley who copes with the death of her mother by traveling back in time through a magical rose in her grandmother's greenhouse to the era of a young Queen Elizabeth. The first book, The Portal , was satisfying enough that I didn't feel obligated to read the next one. However, there were a few loose ends that I was curious about, so I decided to complete the series with The Burning Queen . I was disappointed to learn that this book was very similar to the first one and offered almost no progression in Rose's quest to rebuild her family. This post will contain some spoilers for Tangled in Time: The Portal , so please read my review for that instead if you don't want to be spoiled. The Burning Queen  pi...

When I first saw an ad for the novel Tangled in Time: The Portal , I assumed that it was part of Disney's poorly rated Twisted Tales series  of alternate universe fanfic retellings  of their classic movies due to a portion of the title being shared with a popular Disney movie of the same name . Having little to interest in that series, I ignored the book entirely. Fortunately for me, it popped up again recently on a short list of princess book recommendations , and I realized that it had nothing to do with either Disney or the story of "Rapunzel."  Instead, it is a juvenile historical fiction that incorporates  time travel  to the days when the most famous Queen Elizabeth was still a princess. If I had known that from the beginning, I would have picked it up much sooner than I did. The duology is written by Kathryn Lasky , who is known for her other historical fiction series including Dear America  and The Royal Diaries . The book fell into my lap dur...

Due to my obsessive personality, I try my hardest to avoid gimmicky smartphone apps that try to suck up all my time and money, but one slips through the cracks every so often. I downloaded Dress Up! Time Princess  on a whim, expecting to get tired of it after a few days and uninstall it, but then, it blew all of my expectations out of the water. This game  is the most perfect combination of visual novels , dress up dolls , and gacha apps that I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It has all of the best types of princess games rolled up into one. I've played other apps that offer individual facets of this one and got tired of them over time, but Dress Up! Time Princess contains so many different activities that it is impossible to get bored. It combines the best of technology with the best of femininity, something that Disney has been rigorously attempting to weed out of their own princess branding. Similar to the Choices and Lovestruck apps, Dress Up! Time Princes...

Only one month after my recent obsession with Find Me in Paris , the time-traveling ballerina princess drama dropped its third and final season on Hulu today. Though somewhat predictable, this season offered a satisfying conclusion to the show's unique concept that combined dance with science fiction and tied up all remaining loose ends from the previous seasons. We finally learned the truth about Lena's birth and why she's always being chased by anyone remotely interested in time travel. Nearly every character got paired off at the end, even if it meant some questionable decisions on behalf of the writers. The season also offered some of the most beautiful dance sequences in the show yet for its key story moments. While I could have done without the repetitive recap sequences, the final episodes made it clear that this was always meant to be the end and gave the cast and crew many happy memories to look back upon. The final season of Find Me in Paris incorporated the ...

In 2002, the anime series Princess Tutu  combined fairy tales and ballet by introducing a  magical girl  who was a ballerina princess. In actuality, the main character was neither a ballerina nor a princess but is, in fact, a duck who transforms into one. For some of us, this concept was a bit too out there to wrap our heads around, so I'm grateful that in 2018, the French/German production studio, Cottonwood Media , created a series about an actual ballerina princess called  Find Me in Paris . This live-action fantasy drama was recommended by one of my readers and currently has two seasons out on Hulu with a third one on the way. I perused all 52 episodes in three days and am now fully prepared to explain why it is the perfect princess series to binge in your tower . Find Me in Paris begins with a subtle throwback to Anastasia  in which a Russian Princess from the year 1905 named Lena Grisky mysteriously disappears after her boyfriend gives her a magical...