About the book: Some people bomb auditions. Sadie Ramirez throws up during her tryouts on TV show America's Top Talent. Her performance is so bad, it earns her a fairy godmother through the Magical Alliance's Pitiful Damsel Outreach Program. Enter Chrysanthemum Everstar: a gum-chewing, cell phone-carrying, high heel wearing fairy godmother in training. She misinterprets Sadie's wishes and sends her back in time to be a part of The Little Mermaid story and then makes her one of the twelve dancing princesses. Wishes are permanent, and if Sadie wants to get back to her home, she'll have to strike a magical bargain--one that involves stealing a goblet from a powerful fairy queen.
My review: Janette Rallison is excellent at writing books for young adults and this series has been particularly fun. Chrysanthemum Everstar is such a fun character, I love the way that she is always interpreting the wishes of the girls that she's supposed to be helping. She's always putting them into some crazy fairy tale. In this one, she sends poor Sadie Ramirez first to the Little Mermaid, and then to the 12 Dancing Princesses. It was kind of fun how some of the princesses from the 12 Dancing Princesses were obviously from modern times, but didn't remember much if anything from their lives. It was also fun how with each new addition from modern times the number of princesses in the fairy tale grew.
I liked Sadie as a character. I liked that she is a strong young woman, and that she was able to figure out what was important in the end and show her true character. I think that having strong young women characters in young adult books teaches these young women that they too can be strong young women and stand up for what they believe in. I liked that Sadie needed to think and work with the invisible prince, Donovan, to figure out a way not only to get the goblet they needed but also to try to get both of them and the selfish Jason back to their proper time frame, if at all possible.
The story line of this one is really well done. I loved the flow of the story. I loved that it seemed seamless to go from the current time period to the Little Mermaid's time period to the 12 Dancing Princess's time period. And I thought that the ending was fabulous!
This is a fun book that both adults and young adults will enjoy reading! You won't want to put it down, I know that I didn't!
I was sent an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.Labels: clean ya, fairy tale adaptation, Janette Rallison
