Solid 3.5 Stars
MAYBE I DON'T WANT TO BE A PRINCESS
This book wasn’t bad,
it was actually quite interesting; but there were a lot of small things that
added up into making it not worthy of over the three-ish star mark.
The history in the book was interesting. I loved learning
about the different princesses or anti-princesses that broke the common mold
and paved their way to infamy through battles, sexual favors, or by direct
infiltration of the monarchy. Many of the princesses I’ve heard of before and
have even admired in the past, but many of them were also weird, wacky, and
sometimes downright terrifying. Plus, the shortness of each story was really
nice. It didn’t feel like an overload of information which was great for
someone with my attention span.
BUT. There were several small factors that just added up
into a controlled mess. To start, there were minor typos. And when I say minor,
I mean that they were very minimal such as writing Princess Elisabeth’s name as
Elizabeth every once in awhile. They were so minor that it didn’t deter from
the book that much; it was just an inconvenience.
Secondly, for a book that is supposed to be celebrating
women, the author used the word slut several
times which rubbed me the wrong way. I feel like I would have been okay with it
if it was a word that was used back in the early first century and the 1400s
(the eras in which she used the word). I don’t know, I may be nitpicking here,
but it would have been better to use words that were contemporary to the time.
It would have been better if the author didn’t call these women out as “slutty”
even when just using the term as an example of a common misconception. Again,
this could be totally far-fetched. I was talking to my mom earlier about my
dislike for its use in the book (because it’s also not very academic) but she
didn’t see a problem with it, so it could just be me.
Finally, when I was reading through the references in the
back of the book, I decided that I didn’t know how many of the stories I could
believe. The author used many academic sources for her research, but she also
used many non-academic sources such as blog posts, The BBC, and The New York
Times. Now, these publications are generally accepted as viable sources for
information, but they weren’t written by experts in the field who know exactly
what they’re talking about. The articles were written by journalists—and while
journalists are good at writing and research, the articles could also be full
of bias which makes the information in the book itself less reliable. (I guess
it makes sense, though. The author is a journalist herself).
Don’t
get me wrong, it’s alright to take information from magazines or newspapers,
but take it lightly. For instance, I would have been alright if the author used
only newspaper and magazine articles for her stories about the modern day
princesses that were all over the press in their times. The press was how
information got out during the 1900s and 2000s. I just wish she would have used
only academic sources and not magazine and newspaper articles for princesses
from 500 to 1000 years ago. It would have made the stories much more
believable, at least for me. I found myself just kind of reading, but not
having any wow moments because it was
information you could find if you did a simple Google search.
I also wasn’t a fan of the author’s attempts at witty
interjections. It ruined the flow of the information. I think the author is a
very talented writer and could have just written out the history without trying
to modernize it by her wit because it kept my interest even when it was just an
outpouring of information. It was an entertaining and easy read; not to mention
that the flow from subject to subject was generally smooth (when the author
didn’t provide interpolations, of course).
I’d recommend this book simply because it is full of good
stories and it really piqued my interest into discovering more about many of
the princesses I read about. Besides, who didn’t want to be a princess at some
point in their life? This book simply satisfied my childhood interest (but also
made me think that maybe being a princess isn’t all the great!).
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Long live the queen,
Lauren
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