Wednesday, January 4, 2023

Book Review: The Desert Princess by Thea Stilton (Princesses of Fantasia #3)

 

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 Principesse del Regno della Fantasia #3: Principessa del Deserto.

Book three! I've had mixed thoughts on this series so far, but I like it enough to continue reading. Spoilers ahead.

We follow yet another of the five princess sisters, this time Samah in the desert realm she governs. Here, she meets a mysterious boy named Rubin Blue, who seems to be after an mysterious object. Meanwhile, her cousin Daishan goes missing. Samah and the others set out on finding Daishan and trying to save the kingdom.

Honestly I consider this one the best out of the series, but not by much. My main gripe with the series so far is that it is starting to become repetitive and formulaic. We meet one of the sisters. She lives in a palace and has friends, usually at least one (adopted) family member and staff. A (mysterious) young man shows up. A part of the kingdom's secret song goes missing or is almost stolen. The Nameless Prince (Herbert) turns out to be behind it. The princess or one of the other characters falls in love with a young man and it goes pretty fast.

However, despite that I enjoyed this one the most. I liked the desert realm, I liked the characters slightly better (though I do think that Herbert, using Rubin Blue this time, is the weakest as a villain here out of all three books). His henchman isn't even that present in the story, just kinda shows up and vanishes after he figured out where the part of the secret song is located. Herbert still the same villain as in the other books, but he just leaves so little of an impression here.

The part I liked the most about the book was the romance between Daishan and Yuften, however. Yes, really. Me who usually doesn't give a shit about romance actually really liked their bond. They just have this really sweet yet simple romance of someone related to royalty who falls for a commoner. It isn't even a Romeo and Juliet-type of thing, they can be together, they just know that they have to make decisions in order for this to happen. Neither of them are perfect characters but they love one another genuinely and I was really afraid that Yuften was going to be another form of Herbert. But luckily not, their romance was just pure and genuine. So props for writing a nice romance here.

Overall I like this book quite a bit. Still, it's not perfect with Herbert not being all that interesting here and the repetitive tropes the series is starting to use. However, I do like the implication this book has that Calengol could possibly still be alive? He was my favorite character in the first book and I'd be down for them bringing him back so long as they don't treat him as an irredeemable villain. Seriously, he's been through hell and deserves a little bit of reconciliation even if the five princesses aren't directly at fault for what happened to him in the past.

Rating: 3.5/5

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