princess ben by catherine gilbert murdock

I enjoyed reading it and my opinion of Murdock has improved slightly, but she's still not going to be a favorite author. The writing in Wisdom's Kiss was, for the most part better, although Tips' letters drove me crazy.Īll in all, this is a very odd book, but it was rather amusing and constructed in a unique manner. Plus, she was a serious jerk to her best friend when the friend confessed that she was a lesbian.

For another, the main character was not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, which, since the story was written in first person, meant that the writing was not particularly good. For one thing, I have no interest in football. My only previous experience with Murdock was Dairy Queen, which I did not like. Still, she's powerless as well as being completely clumsy, unlikable, incompetent, and a glutton. She hasn't been trained for princessery, due to her mother's adamant stance against it, and only because her aunt proved to be barren and widowed does the throne fall to her. If young Ben is not this way, why would you do this to her? And what happened to her husband? Princess Ben isn't your run of the mill princess. If her young character is anything like this crazy grandmother, I'm not sure that I want to read that book. The Queen Mother, who I believe is Ben from Princess Ben, one of Murdock's earlier novels that I have not read, is awkward. She's the first character you meet, but her story is rattled off like a note in the end credits. Really the only one I liked at all was Trudy, who had a seriously awkward ending. So many of them were incredibly dumb, including the poorly-named wisdom. The characters, however, did not meet with similar satisfaction.

I thought this way of telling the story showed ingenuity and was surprisingly effective. These generally depicted a scene that had been already described but in extra-dramatic Shakespearean style. There are also little snippets of plays interspersed between the other formats.

Most of the plot unfolds through characters memoirs written ex post facto, diary entries or letters written to others. What makes this book really stand out is the method that Murdock uses to tell the story. The whole thing does read like a fairy tale, with princesses and betrayal and cats and magic. Although not obviously apparent for most of the book, this is actually a reimagined fairy tale.

Princess ben by catherine gilbert murdock