Princess of the Wild Sea. Megan Frazer Blakemore. 2023. [January] 256 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: Three days after Harbor Rose turned twelve a boy washed up on the shore of Small Island. While many things had washed up there, only once before had a child.
Premise/plot; Princess of the Wild Sea is a looser adaptation of the classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. There's a baby who's both "blessed" and "cursed" by aunties at a christening. She's a princess. There's a finger prick. There's sleeping...and eventual waking. But it isn't a close retelling or adaptation. It spins its own tale.
Harbor Rose is the 'princess' of the tale. She's raised on an island--a "hidden" island. Her family is trying to protect her from the curse, or so-called curse that is destined to come...
Peter is the 'stranger' that washes up on the island; he comes from a 'different realm' (a place called Kansas). The prophecy said he'd be 'the hero' there to save the kingdom/princess when the time was right...
My thoughts: While it isn't unusual for me to be confused at the start of a fantasy novel, it is unusual for me to be confused at the beginning, the middle, and the end. There wasn't any chapter where I wasn't shaking my head in absolute and total confusion. Comprehension consists of stringing events together and making sense of them as a whole. There was none of that. Could that be 100% me? yes.
What little I made sense of this one felt a bit agenda-ish. The 'Frost' enemies were created by not taking responsibilities for past wrongs, mistakes, sins, etc. A country who failed to recognize that they weren't "saving" the countries they were colonizing/conquering??? A country who failed to recognize the blood on their hands--figuratively and perhaps literally speaking--from their past wars and conquests. A country who hushes up "shameful acts" of the past. And there was some talk of how the 'Frost soldiers' could only be defeated by taking responsibility for the past and acknowledging it, etc. Another possible agenda being that this young girl--12? 13? 14? somewhere around there--is the hero of her own story and only she has the power to figure out the crisis and decide what is best. I don't have a big problem with that--as opposed to relying on a complete and total stranger from a strange land who knows absolutely nothing--but the plot twist that 99% of what Harbor Rose thought she knew about her life turning out to be a lie was odd to me. Her decisions seem to magically appear as if by instinct and luck...since she's clueless too.
Overall, I was too confused to ever enjoy the story.
© 2023 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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