A review by leigh9
The Princetta by Anne-Laure Bondoux

5.0

Well, Goodreads is full of spoilers for the end of this book. I will attempt to properly note all spoilers so the story won't be ruined for you.

Malva, the Princetta, runs away from her land on the eve of her wedding and begins a quest to find the mythic Elgolia. Orpheus is one of the men sent by Malva's father to bring her back. Along the way they develop a posse of quirky adventurers all on their own quests.

As most reviewers, I felt like the first half of this book is amazing. It's like Voyage of the Dawn Treader and the Odyssey and it's exciting and Malva and Orpheus have time to develop before they meet and must work together. Sadly, the second half is disappointing. I felt like the turning point was

Malva's Island, where she finds Elgolia. Her quest leads her to a place that doesn't fulfill the hype and while I think that's the point, I also feel like it's were the writer didn't know what to do once Malva had accomplished her goal.

I wish that it had been a better ending but at the same time I wonder if in a few months I will feel like the ending was exactly what this book needed.

Midpoint spoilers:

The Trials of Catabea were hit or miss for me. I liked Lei, Finopicio and Orpheus's trials but I felt like Babilus and Hob's was half-baked, and Malva's shouldn't have been Elgolia. I'm still upset over Zeph and Peppe's. I took half a star off this because nobody kills the dog and gets away with it. The Trials also gave me serious anime/cartoon vibes which I didn't hate. But the Trials also felt like they took away from the main plot of finding Elgolia/getting Malva back to Galnicia. I wish this book was longer so the Trials could have felt more connected to the actual story line, or had this become a series of adventure books because I would have liked to follow Malva and Orpheus having adventures across the world.

Main Villain spoilers:

I also liked the Archont plot in the first half but I felt like there was never a proper explanation of why the Archont was after Malva, or evil, or why he hated Galnicia.

End spoilers:

The ending felt rushed. The tone shifts to being more passive as if the author wanted to just get the story out and over with so she could move on to the other things, or maybe her publisher was pressing her to finish, who knows. Many of the plot lines feel rushed from Orpheus death to the Archont's return to Lei and Hob leaving to Balmun. Again, I wish this was a series so we could have seen Balmun. It didn't seem quite finished to me and felt unsatisfactory.

Still, despite all the flaws, I really (REALLY) liked this book.