Kelly Barnhill (The Mostly True Story of Jack) vaults an unlikely hero to success, and twists the foundation of classic fairy tales for humorous and haunting results.
Princess Violet is "ugly" by storybook standards, with her mismatched eyes, freckled face and unruly hair. But she is adventurous, smart, curious and strong. She does not wait in an ivory tower for her prince to come. She meets Demetrius, a boy her age who becomes her companion, when he saves her from a bull at pasture (after she slips away from her tutors and governess). Violet's father, the king of the Andulan Realms, is obsessed with finding the last dragon. As Violet and Demetrius explore the castle's tunnels, they discover a room with a secret book. An image of a unhuman being ("instead of hands and feet it had four sharp points") standing on a mound of dragon hearts leads them to believe that Cassian the royal storyteller has not told them this tale.
Narrator Cassian is more interested in crafting the perfect story than confiding a history that might have spared his kingdom great pain. It is Cassian who perpetuates the cliché that a princess must be beautiful, planting a seed of doubt in Violet. In her pursuit of the meaning of the secret book, Violet discovers a 13th god, Nybbas, so evil that the other 12 gods removed his heart to render him powerless. His fate mirrors the punishment Nybbas himself meted out to the dragons. In ages gone by, dragons removed their hearts and preserved them in cocoons of their own scales and tears, with the intention of replacing their hearts in adulthood. But Nybbas took their hearts. Now only one remains. The king's pursuit of the dragon takes him to the lands of the Mountain King, who wages war in retaliation. Fear spreads.
In a mirrored world where people cannot see the sky, Nybbas travels through the mirrors, casting spells in order to regain his heart (and his power). Barnhill deftly correlates the mirrors to the vanity on which Nybbas preys. Even Violet succumbs; she makes a wish to be beautiful, like a "real" princess. When she realizes the gravity of her error, Violet sees how many have come under the 13th god's spell. Her quest for the truth, to keep Nybbas from regaining his heart and to make the last dragon whole will keep readers turning pages. It's a coming-of-age story, a mystery and an adventure about owning one's strengths, and not shying away from them, regardless of how unorthodox they may appear to others. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: An unorthodox princess is bent on taking matters into her own hands in order to defeat an evil god, make the last dragon whole and save her kingdom.