And that's one of my problems, Miri isn't Cosette, the way she goes around the city and things she does here just felt completely alien to her character from the first book, like she's swept up and deposited in a story that's not her own.Īnd for a sequel, I'm disappointed by all the returning characters except Britta. I have the feeling Hale took a lot of inspiration from Les Miserables for this sequel, from the discontented masses of urban poor on the streets of Asland to the whispers of plans to overthrow the king in salons around the city, it all makes Palace of Stone a very different book from Princess Academy, a far more mature book. Some of them are good, like Miri finding Asland not to be the shining city by the sea she's always dreamed of from poor, isolated Mount Eskel, but some not so much, like the massive amount of politics that's thrown into the story. A good book but without what made the original great.Īccording to Shannon Hale, the keyword here is revolution so I expected a lot of changes in the wind. Part of the charm of the original Princess Academy is the innocence of the characters, these simple mountain girls being exposed to the extravagance of royalty and court life for the first time yet finding inner strength in their own simplicity, and while Miri does grow as a character here, it's just not the same. Miri and Princess Academy grow up in this sequel, and I'm not sure I really like it.
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