The Princess Blog

By now, I'm sure I've made my feelings about Disney's live-action remakes perfectly clear. In fact, when I saw the first trailer they released for their upcoming live-action Aladdin  remake , it only reassured me that this would be a bland shadow of the original 1992 animated classic . However, Disney's clever marketing team  has been stealthily dropping TV spots and other campaigns for the film over the past few weeks that make it look like it might be worth watching as its own entity. That's not to say that it won't be comparable at all since it does still feature the same songs, characters, and plot. Yet, there appears to be a bit more creativity in this remake than the watered down Beauty and the Beast  clone they released in 2017. Of course, that could also be the result of a very well edited commercial. This "Rags to Wishes" promo shifted many of expectations about the movie I will be seeing on May 24th in a good way. The promo starts wi...

Oh, She-Ra, She-Ra, She-Ra, why must you let me down? There were only seven episodes this season. For comparison's sake, that's actually shorter than the runtime of the new  Avengers: Endgame  movie. Noelle Stevenson could have taken advantage of that to turn the season into an extended movie with an ongoing story arc. Instead, it followed in the footsteps of its predecessor  by releasing five irrelevant filler episodes and two character-driven backstory episodes before ending with a cliffhanger that was almost--but not quite--as frustrating as the ending of the Tangled finale . I should have predicted something like this from the mediocre trailer they released, but I was hoping they were just trying to keep the plot under wraps to avoid spoilers. It was particularly disappointing after the incredibly strong first season the show delivered only six months ago. While the first season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power excelled at character growth, these episodes...

Did you know that the Tangled series might be in trouble? Despite boasting beautiful music, breathtaking artwork , and top-notch storytelling , it is reportedly one of the lowest rated shows on Disney Channel right now. Executive producer Chris Sonnenberg  has been diligently reaching out to fans via Twitter  to spread more visibility for the show. Loyal fans have also created a new Twitter page  to share and discuss news about the series. Don't worry; we're still getting a third season . I just have no idea when. In solidarity of the recent efforts to promote the show, I did some research and discovered that there was a second tie-in novel released last year called Rapunzel and the Vanishing Village . I had already discovered the first tie-in novel, Rapunzel and the Lost Lagoon , when it was released thanks to an aggressive advertising campaign on Facebook. It did a fantastic job of bridging the gap between the original film and the series. Rapunzel and the Vanishing V...

The final book in the Autumn Fairy Trilogy  was released a few weeks ago. I've been reading these books since the beginning, so I knew exactly what to expect from this one. Like the rest of Brittany Fichter's work , it was pretty dark for a faery princess  story. The main characters were tortured through the entire book until they were ultimately saved by their divine faith in Atharo, who is this world's version of God. For me, the best thing about this series was the beautiful imagery of the magical naturalistic world that the fairies lived in and the elegant floral fashions that they wore. The final book cut back on most of those pleasantries in favor of even more character torture leading up to the final conflict. Therefore, The Last Autumn Fairy  was the weakest book in the trilogy for me. The Last Autumn Fairy  chronicles the logical next step in Katy and Peter's star-crossed relationship as well as all of the obstacles that inevitably come with it. Since ...

The rest of the second season of the Tangled series  flew by like a whirlwind  over the past six weeks and concluded today with the season finale special,  Destinies Collide . Due to the show's  erratic air schedule , I was hoping the season wouldn't end on a cliffhanger, but it did. I would be really upset about this if it hadn't been for all the great stuff in the episode leading up to it. All of the big revelations and parallels to the  Tangled  feature made  Destinies Collide  a satisfying conclusion to the season. We know that everything will be fully wrapped up after the third and final season airs, whenever that may be, leading into the short  "Tangled Ever After."  There is a lot to unpack in this finale. It's hard for me to talk about it without spoilers, so I suggest that you  go ahead and watch  Destinies Collide  before reading this if you haven't seen it yet. I'll wait. To start, I really have t...

Thanks to J.M. Stengl 's Advance Readers list, I had the privilege of being one of the first to read the latest addition to her  Faraway Castle series, The Lady and the Wish . I believe this book will be available to the public next week, so my review will be just a bit early for those of you who are interested in reading it right away. Unlike the other three books in the series, which were based on popular fairy tales that have had many adaptations created, The Lady and the Wish  is inspired by the obscure Grimm fairy tale "King Thrushbeard," which I had never seen adapted in book or media format before this point. I was familiar with the fairy tale prior to reading this book, but it had never been one of my favorites, which might be why I didn't enjoy The Lady and the Wish  quite as much as the other Faraway Castle books . Regardless, it was still a very creative and original take on the story while still remaining faithful to its theme of a prideful woman's ...

The countdown to the final episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic  has begun. The premiere of the show's ninth season, entitled "The Beginning of the End," aired over the weekend with some pretty big revelations about what to expect for the finale. This is still far from the end of the My Little Pony franchise as the series has been rebooted many times since the '80s. It's just that this particular iteration of it that began in 2010 was by far the most popular and lasted the longest. It's hard to believe it's been going for almost a decade now. The series was incredibly intricate in building it's vast world of Equestria and wove tons of fun new mythology into the franchise. It also placed heavy focus on princesses and princess culture in general. The pony kingdom of Canterlot is run by Princess Celestia. Showrunner Lauren Faust wanted to her make a queen  but got turned down by the studio when they claimed that girls see princesses as good...

The Beast and the Beauty  follows up Till Midnight  as the second book in Aya Ling 's Reversed Retellings series, which reverses the gender roles from well-known fairy tales. This book was her take on the story of "Beauty and the Beast"  with a male beauty and a female beast. Though Gail Carson Levine did something similar to this with Ogre Enchanted , The Beast and the Beauty  is more of a direct translation of the romantic elements of the original story, giving the reader a better opportunity to look at how the dynamics of the characters change when their genders are reversed. A conventionally beautiful man has different problems than a conventionally beautiful woman, and the same applies to a grotesque or deformed man vs. a grotesque or deformed woman. I thought this was a very clever take on the story while still staying true to the most beloved elements of it. The Beast and the Beauty  is the story of Lady Sybil de la Roche, a rich debutant who was cur...

Tomorrow night is the series finale of one of my favorite TV shows , Crazy Ex-Girlfriend . At surface level, this show might seem to have nothing to do with princess culture , but it is actually a deconstruction of many of the less empowering tropes introduced in some older princess movies and romantic comedies while still embracing the traits of these passionate women that we can all connect with . The show features several princess-inspired music numbers  as well as a made-up Disney Princess movie called Slumbered  that the main character, Rebecca, supposedly grew up with. Series star and co-creator Rachel Bloom  does everything for her fans just like a real-life princess would. That's why the series finale tomorrow night will be followed by a concert special that Rachel cordially invited all her fans in the Los Angeles area to attend as audience members. I just happened to be one of those lucky fans. This event was more than just a concert. Even though many peop...

One of the benefits of blogging about princess books is that I occasionally get recommendations from my readers about books that I probably would never have known about otherwise. This month, that's been a little stressful for me since three of my favorite authors are releasing new books. When I received a recommendation on my "Disabled Princesses" post , I tried to read it as quickly as I could before my reading list explodes. Just the Way You Are  by Allison M. Boot  was written with the intention of creating positive visibility for disabled princess fans. While it succeeds in that respect, the story itself leaves much to be desired. Allison is a fantastic advocate for people with disabilities, and I think she is a very admirable person for all of the effort that she has put into this. She isn't a bad writer either, but the story structure in Just the Way You Are borrows heavily from common tropes, making it difficult to appreciate as an original fairy tale or adap...