The Princess Blog

Cinders of Glass  was one of the best fairy tale adaptations I have ever read, so it was difficult to follow up with a book that was just as romantic, compelling, and magical. Songs of Stone  by Celeste Baxendell  has all of those things to an extent, but it does not live up to the high pedestal that its predecessor set for it. This is the fifth book in the Bewitching Fairy Tales series  and is inspired by two somewhat lesser known stories, "The Pied Piper" and "The Sandman."  The book has a rough-and-tumble protagonist similar to the one in Beasts of Beauty , the third book in this series, and is a far cry from the gentle Liora in Cinders of Glass . It is jam-packed with so many references to previous books that many chapters were cumbersome to get through even though I've already read the rest of the series. Piper is a tragic young lady who lost most of her family and turned to a life of crime to save the one relative she has left. She is "gifted" a...

I wasn't sure what to expect after the movie My Sweet Monster  was recommended to me and I found out it was released last year. There are very few movies I've enjoyed that came out within the past five years or so. Then again, there haven't been many animated princess movies for a while in general. My Sweet Monster  is a Russian CGI princess musical with a plot that feels like it could have been released in the '90s with environmentalist themes and a wacky setting. It's on par with lower budget animated films like Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest  or Charming . I appreciate that it was a musical, which is becoming less common these days, and that it isn't pandering to political themes, probably due to cultural differences in Russia. It isn't one of the best animated films I've ever seen, but it's refreshing for something that came out within the last year. My Sweet Monster  is about a ditzy princess named Barbara, voiced by Haylie Duff , who wants to...

Big news! It was just announced that Disney is working on a new musical inspired by yet another one of the fairy tales that we love, "The Princess and the Pea."  The title of the movie will be  Penelope,  and it is being written by Robert Sudduth , who worked Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist , a well-received jukebox musical series that aired on NBC last year. For those of you hoping for another Tangled  or Frozen , I'm sorry to inform you that Penelope is going to be live-action , which means it will probably look more along the lines of Once Upon a Time . If you still desire a Disney Renaissance-style animated musical adaptation of "The Princess and the Pea," look no further than the 2002 indie film The Princess and the Pea , which might be even better than this one turns out. This isn't the first live-action musical adaptation of the classic Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale either. The Wonderful World of Disney released a made-for-TV adaptation of t...

Golden Age, the newest visual novel in Time Princess  is a celebration of the game's massive collaboration with the Louvre Museum in Paris. It is the second story since Queen Marie to take place in France and covers three different time periods. Even though it involves time travel in Paris, it doesn't have much in common with other time travel stories like Find Me in Paris  because the main character spends half the book as one person in one time period and the other half as a different person in another time period, so she doesn't jump around forming contradictions in the timeline. The story has a lot in common with Time Princess itself in that it involves a girl who lives in different people's bodies during a significant turning point in their life. Art is the main focus of this novel, which is why the modern incarnation of the protagonist is an art curator, similar to the main character in Whispers of the Rain . Golden Age begins with an art curator named Anais try...

There have been a number of Disney Princess -related announcements this week, mostly pertaining to things I have already posted about, so I decided to compile them into a quick update so they don't get buried by another story. First and foremost, the newest Disney cruise ship, the Disney Wish , completed its maiden voyage this week. I was particularly excited about this ship because it contained a new stage show inspired by Disney's The Little Mermaid . While I was hoping someone on the ship would have uploaded footage by now, I have not been able to locate anything substantial as of the time of this post. Please let me know if any of you find anything about this show. There are some new promo images  for it that made the rounds last week, giving us a better idea of the overall look and feel. It is my opinion that this show was meant to premiere after the upcoming live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid , explaining the lead actress's resemblance to Halle Bailey . The ...

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer  is not a series I would have considered reading if it wasn't inspired by fairy tales, and even then, I had some hesitation. It takes place in a dystopian cyberpunk-like world filled with robots, aliens, and disease. It's hardly the setting you would expect for a story based on "Cinderella,"  yet the first book, Cinder , wholeheartedly embraces this odd combination. I was intrigued by the concept after reading a good short story  about a robotic Cinderella, but this world was a bit too dark for my tastes. Though I have little interest in reading the rest of the series, I have to give the author credit for her creativity and passion. Cinder is a cyborg working as a mechanic in the dystopian city of New Beijing. She has several chance encounters with Prince Kai, who is in a marriage alliance with the wicked Queen Levana, an alien from the Lunar Kingdom with mind control powers. He hopes to get out of the alliance by finding the lost...

It's pretty bizarre that a musical production exists of Dreamworks' 2001 animated film Shrek . The movie was created as Jeffrey Katzenberg 's revenge on Disney after numerous disputes with other executives at the company . It satirizes common Disney and fairy tale tropes , one of those being the use of musical numbers performed by the characters. I recall reading an early interview about the film (that I can't find anywhere online now) in which one of the filmmakers said that Shrek doesn't sing because they just couldn't see such a tough and emotionally closed-off character belting into song. Instead, Donkey serenades him with well-known radio hits to Shrek's great dismay. Yet, despite his aversion to sinigng, a musical version of the film  in which all of the main characters sang original songs hit Broadway theaters in 2008 and remained there for two years. I was vaguely aware that this show existed but didn't know much about it until a professional rec...

The Silent Songbird  is the second book I've read by Christian fiction author Melanie Dickerson . This one appealed to me because it was inspired by my favorite fairy tale, "The Little Mermaid."  Considering that this fairy tale already has some heavy Christian themes such as the mermaid wanting to gain an immortal soul through holy matrimony and the prince being found in a temple when he washed ashore, I thought this book would have some heavier religious undertones than it did. It was a pretty loose retelling that was far more realistic than the original story, much like the first book I read by this author. The Silent Songbird has nothing to do with mermaids or even the sea and instead tries to capture the rebellious spirit of the little mermaid while engrossing its readers in a believable historical setting. Evangeline has royal blood flowing through her veins despite her illegitimate birth. Because of this, her cousin, the king, is not quite sure what to do with he...

After  The Little Mermaid Live!  received quite a bit of undeserved criticism, Disney has decided to try the live treatment again with the next chronological princess movie, Beauty and the Beast . Disney has just announced Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration  to air on Thursday, December 15th at 8PM EST on ABC in honor of the film's 30th anniversary, which was actually last year. The special will likely be presented in the same way as its predecessor with a live screening of the film in front of a group of energetic fans while a yet-to-be-announced cast of actors will come out in costume to perform each song in person. Like The Little Mermaid , this format was previously  presented to an audience at the Hollywood Bowl in 2018  where actress Zooey Deschanel  starred as Belle. Who would be your dream casting for this new televised take on the film? What I preferred about the televised version of The Little Mermaid  to the one at the Hollywood Bowl i...

Two years after Disney announced that they would be revamping their Splash Mountain attraction  to feature The Princess and the Frog ,we finally have an update about it. The newly refurbished ride will be called Tiana's Bayou Adventure  and will be unveiled at both American Disney theme parks in late 2024. The title is reminiscent of another princess ride that opened a little over a decade ago, Ariel's Undersea Adventure . I guess they felt the parks were lacking in rides named after a princess with the word "adventure" in them after Snow White's Scary Adventures  got replaced by Snow White's Enchanted Wish  in Disneyland and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in Walt Disney World as well as WDW's renaming of Ariel's Undersea Adventure to Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid . I think it's important to remember that despite the way Disney is marketing this, it is not a new ride. In a press release last Friday , Disney revealed some new details ...

The Princess  has arrived on Hulu. Due to my exceeding low expectations for this stereotypical modern princess movie , it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There were some contrived themes about overcoming the patriarchy  and women being stronger than men , but the protagonist was surprisingly relatable thanks to Joey King 's stellar performance. Although  the trailer gave a good baseline of what to expect, there were a few things that were misleading such as the irreverent comedy aspect, which was heavily downplayed in the actual film. I appreciated that the movie took itself more seriously than the trailer led me to believe. There's nothing ironic or innovative about seeing a delicate-looking woman kick everyone's ass in a modern film. It was the more serious elements that provided an opportunity to enjoy at least some parts of The Princess . Someone working on this film thought it would be a great idea not to give the main character a name, and I think that w...

Hela's Compass is the shorter of the two visual novels that were released this month in Time Princess . In a surprising change of pace, this was not another story about demons . Instead, it opens up a new cross genre that combines science fiction and Norse mythology. The book is only one chapter long, which is a shame because there could have been a lot to unpack within these two genres. The shorter format made it felt rushed and difficult to follow at times. I loved the whimsical world and costumes as well as the fact that it was the first story in a while in this game to incorporate royalty, this time in relation to gods and goddesses like they did with  Helen of Sparta . This story could have been even more enjoyable than it already is if more time and effort had been put into it. Hela's Compass is about a navigator named Kelly who works on a futuristic ship called the Iron Wyvern that shares the unfortunate fate of the Titanic. Kelly embarks on a quest with her crewmates,...