[Review] "Princess Ben" by Catherine Murdock

[anime_babble]

I'd like to begin with the statement that I am totally the target audience of this novel, even if I'm outside the age bracket marketed towards. I love YA stories; I love fantasy YA stories and I love fairy tale re-tellings even loosely related ones.

This book was AWFUL.

Princess Ben is orphaned and grows up under the thumb of her oppressive and strict Aunt Sophia who is acting as Reagent until Ben reaches the age of majority. Ben gets locked into a tower at night so that she won't sneak food (she 'overeats' according to her Aunt) and discovers a secret magic room where she learns some magic. This is less important than you would think as she decides halfway through the book to stop pursuing any magical knowledge without any real reason. She goes to a ball and meets the Prince of the next kingdom, who is basically an asshole. At one point he declares to his men that Ben is ugly and without any charm but he'll wed and bed her anyway to get her kingdom. He never apologizes for this, but Ben repeatedly calls him handsome, smart etc etc and decides he is her true love by the end of the novel.

Oh and let's not even get started with the body image issues in this novel. Ben describes herself as a plump girl. But then the book shows far too much interest in tracking her weight as the novel progresses. She gets thinner after a stint as a POW and when she stops using food for comfort, thus the princess finishes the novel with the stereotypical "princess" body type. So you can be whatever body shape to start with but only if you work and work at being thin do you have any value.

To be fair, I did like that Sophia wasn't evil, just harsh, and the author has potential in the sense that she set up thing quite well for the first quarter of the novel. This is her first fantasy novel, maybe her contemps work better. But in general, this book gets a big fat F from me. Not quite Twilight levels of toxic, but close.