When I picked up the Battle for
Princess Madeline by Kirstin Pulioff I wasn’t sure what to expect. To
me, fairytales are best when they are either sweet little stories to tell
my three year old or tongue-in-cheek NC17 satires.
Scenario number 1: The Disney Love
Story
Prince Whathisface needs a wife. Sweet young SoandSo is the adolescent male's ideal: barely nubile at 16 years old, sweetly stupid, gorgeous, etc. and she just happens to be
single.
HORRORS! SHE MUST FIND A HUSBAND, PRONTO!
HORRORS! SHE MUST FIND A HUSBAND, PRONTO!
Before we know it, SoandSo meets Whatshisface and they
inexplicably fall in love without mumbling so much as an awkward, “Uh, hi.”
Trouble ensues, SoandSo is separated from good
old Whatshisface, and everything goes sideways until a deus ex machina materializes, solving everything tidily.
This frees Whathisface and SoandSo to begin their own Teen Mom reality
TV franchise, Medieval style.
Butterflies and rainbows abound.
Scenario Number 2: Cinderella Meets the
Sopranos
Yo! Prince Whatshisface needs a wife, already. He's happily single, a raging alcoholic with a gambling problem and an expensive goomah but then his loan shark tells him he’s
in danger of losing his shiny new Italian carriage and his ability to walk
unless he pays his debts, like yesterday.
HORRORS! HE MUST FIND A RICH WIFE, PRONTO!
The D-bag trolls the kingdom looking to marry a rich yet stupid young
virgin who doesn't know he's gavone. Enter young SoandSo. She is new to the kingdom and loaded so she becomes Whatshisface’s target-of-choice. They meet at a rave but Prince Whatshisface comes off
(surprise!) sounding less-than-charming. SoandSo kicks him to the curb in
front of his friends and, in a moment of cocaine-induced psychosis, Whatshisface
decides, “She's not going to get the best of me!” He kidnaps
her, hoping that Stockade Stockbroker uh...Stockholm Syndrome will kick in at some point and she’ll agree to marry him before his
loan shark kicks in his kneecaps.
Eventually, Whatshisname decides to force the issue and
marry her: willing or not. He slips her a couple of roofies, manhandles
her in the trunk of his carriage and heads to the local drive-through wedding
chapel. When she wakes up to hear the guy say over the speaker if anyone
has an objection let them speak now or forever hold their peace she lets her
fists do the talking – she knocks out Whatshisname's teeth and escapes. SoandSo
capitalizes on the notoriety and respect she gets from standing up to Whatshisface
to poach manpower from other gangs.
Then, she takes over the kingdom's cartels and is forever known as the
Godmother.
Cannolis and RICO violations abound.
The Real Story
The Real Story
At first glance, I thought THE BATTLE
FOR PRINCESS MADELINE looked like it would kind of/sort of fit
into the first category. There certainly weren't any roofies, goomahs or cannolis mentioned
in any of the book reviews I read so I thought it was a pretty safe bet that scenario 2 wasn't a go. The thing
was, even though Prince Paulsen needs a wife and Princess Madeline is sweet,
gorgeous, and barely nubile at 16 years old, that's where the resemblance to
scenario 1 ends. In other words, no one in this book busts out into song and there weren't any schmaltzy romantic montages. (Insert fist pump!) In case you haven’t already guessed, I was
pretty damn happy when I realized this book wasn't going to cutesy me into
submission.
As someone with a daughter, I shudder
to mention it but this book's 16 year old princess is engaged. Initially I was
all like, “Ohmahgawd. What kind of a, like, example is that for my kid?” I was tempted to go back to my normal Tuesday activities (drinking myself into a
stupor while watching Toddlers and Tiaras) but then my left brain kicked in,
reminding me that this was pastoral fantasy so a 24 year old would probably be considered an unmarriageable hag while a 16 year old would be prime marriage material.
That dilemma resolved, I dove into the book. I quickly discovered that I was (for the second time this summer) in the position of being pleasantly surprised by something I was reading. In particular, I was excited by the quality of Pulioff's writing, not because I didn't think she would be a good writer, but because I (mistakenly) assumed mid grade fiction would require shorter, choppier writing to accommodate the limitations of younger readers. (Whaaat? I talk about booze and Tramped up Toddlers and you don't blink but you get all huffy when I say I thought kids needed simpler writing? Remember, I typically read adult fiction or my daughter's coma-inducing Pinkalicious books, people - I don't exactly have any recent MG experience to draw on.) Instead, this book has a nice flow and there are more than a few moments in this story where young readers will be exposed not only to good writing at a comfortable MG level but good writing at any level. I'm a big believer that the best books have story and flow and this one has both.
That dilemma resolved, I dove into the book. I quickly discovered that I was (for the second time this summer) in the position of being pleasantly surprised by something I was reading. In particular, I was excited by the quality of Pulioff's writing, not because I didn't think she would be a good writer, but because I (mistakenly) assumed mid grade fiction would require shorter, choppier writing to accommodate the limitations of younger readers. (Whaaat? I talk about booze and Tramped up Toddlers and you don't blink but you get all huffy when I say I thought kids needed simpler writing? Remember, I typically read adult fiction or my daughter's coma-inducing Pinkalicious books, people - I don't exactly have any recent MG experience to draw on.) Instead, this book has a nice flow and there are more than a few moments in this story where young readers will be exposed not only to good writing at a comfortable MG level but good writing at any level. I'm a big believer that the best books have story and flow and this one has both.
One thing that was a bit of a problem
for me was that Madeline is presented as an independent and intelligent
young woman but she occasionally made some very strange decisions that just don’t seem to jibe with those qualities. For example, she assumed that her
enemy’s scum-of-the-earth lackeys would feel bound by the rules and conventions
of the knightly code of chivalry when she offered herself up to them as a hostage/distraction
at a pivotal point in the story. Given
the riff raff Paulsen had in his army, she should have ended
up on a milk carton or a front runner in next year’s Darwin Awards. Luckily for her, in her world there is honour amongst irredeemable psychopaths so she survives - honour unbesmirched - to
(presumably) head up a third instalment in this quality series. In the end, I guess it boils down to this: she's 16 years old. Lucky? Yes. Street smart? Eeeeh...not so much.
Aside from this one minor quibble, I
really enjoyed this book. It is
definitely written with a mid-grade reader in mind but this particular adult enjoyed it as a nice, light read. It is
also one book in a series I guarantee I will be reading with my daughter when the time
comes to introduce her to the mid grade reading level.
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