Book Review: The Coral Prinses by Thea Stilton (Prinsesses of Fantasia #2)

 

  Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Principessa dei Coralli. 

This one spoke to me a whole lot less than the first book, mostly because of the lack of wolves and the presence of the sea/beach setting, but I do plan on continuing this series. Want to join me in this second book? Spoilers ahead.

Kalea, the titular Coral Prinses of the archipelago, and her two brothers are shocked when a mysterious figure known as Kaliq Zaba shows up shipwrecked on their beach. He's (supposedly) a researcher of plants whose ship got sunk in a pirate attack, and Kalea quickly starts to bond with and later fall for him. However, her brothers are less fond of this Kaliq-character, especially when things start to go awry in the kingdom and Kaliq may be the culprit. Kalea herself doubts if he has anything to do with it, however her suspicions only start to grow as time goes on. But is Kaliq even the real culprit?

Overall I'd say this was kind of a lesser version of the first book. It followed some similar plot beats, but at the same time it was different enough. It can also be read somewhat independently of the first. While the story set up in that book does continue here, at the same time this book is pretty episodic and can be read mostly by itself. There is more of a cliffhanger ending in this book than in the first, though. 

The book overall has pretty okay characters. I think, like with the first, that most characters are kind of basic, however. They're not horribly written or anything, but just usually not all that developed and full of personality as I'd like. Kalea and the other inhabitants of the archipelago aren't that interesting and honestly outside of Kaliq I generally wasn't that into anyone of this book.

I will say that Kaliq makes for a good red herring, though. A large chunk of this book would lead the reader to believe that he is indeed the culprit of the mysterious happenings at the kingdom, because Kaliq is genuinely a mysterious character who has things working against him. He was kind of built up in a similar way to Herbert in the first book. However, unlike Herbert, Kaliq is innocent.

Speaking of, Herbert actually does re-appear in this book. Turns out he's a shape-shifter capable of magic, the nameless son of the previously tyrannical Old King. His goal is to bring back magic and restore his father to the throne of the kingdoms. He's an interesting villain, more interesting here than in book one now that we have more context for him. Also, I'm just going to keep calling him Herbert for the sake of consistency and recognizability. He did his job as a (twist) villain fine in this book. Honestly, for the longest time I did suspect that Herbert was in this book, just that he was a different character (Kaliq). But instead he's under the guise of a commoner fisherman in this book in order to stand out less. So props to the book for making him a better villain here than in book one, with more context and as a good properly-executed twist villain.

I will say that that's really where my praise for this book ends however. It's not bad, not by any means, but it's just...average. Generic, even. It also ends on a cliffhanger. Book one also had a slightly open ending, but it was fairly conclusive at the same time. The main villain was (at least for the time being) defeated, the Gunnar was transformed back into his human form and he and Nives got married, completing the romance and marriage subplots. Here Kaliq and Kalea don't end up together (yet) and Kalea leaves her kingdom behind to journey to the other princesses. 

Also, random quirk this book introduces I don't understand: Gunnar is now no longer referred to by name, just by his new title "Ice Prince"? Which is kind of odd. Book one always addressed him by his name, never his title, and even Nives, the more-important Ice Princess, is referred to by her name across both books. So why Gunnar is now suddenly just called "Ice Prince" was really confusing to me. I had to do a double take to even make sure he was the same character because it felt so out of place and different. There's also no good in-universe reason for his name to be hidden or different, it's just never explained.

Overall, like I said, this is just an average fantasy outing. It's fine for younger readers, not overly young but I'd say about the tween age, but older readers such as myself probably won't find much of value in it other than nostalgia for people who grew up with this series. I did not and am only reading them now as an adult because I'm curious to the story I missed out on as a kid. And while they're fine books, so far this series is nothing special. But that said, I'll still be checking out future books in this series so long as my library has them.

Rating: 3.5/5