To every woman that has ever been told she isn’t enough. You are more than enough. Don’t let a broken system stop you from wearing your crown; use your crown to fix the system.
For this book, I’m going to pull from the blurb for provided on Bookshop.org:
“Galdinia Elderwin, the nineteen-year-old Princess of Crysterra, has lived in the safety of her father’s shadow her whole life. When the king unexpectedly dies, Galdinia is left with the task of becoming queen, but she is missing the key to her ascension to the throne: her gift of elemental power from the gods.
After the king’s death, the capital of Crysterra observes the Week of Mourning, which is full of ceremonies and celebrations in honour of the late king, and on the Seventh Day of Mourning, Princess Galdinia is set to be coronated as queen.
In the span of one week, Galdinia must navigate the throes of training for a gift she has not yet been given, gain the respect of the capital’s Syndicate—who still view her as a child—and overcome the heartache of past forbidden love as she is presented with five powerful and charming suitors who could help legitimise her claim to the throne. All the while, she is wary of her enemies on the horizon-her loathsome uncle and aunt, and the exiled Valah Pyrin—who all believe they have a claim to the throne and would do anything to take it from the young princess.
Galdinia struggles to deal with the rising pressure and anxieties of becoming queen on her own merit, doing right by the citizens of Crysterra, and having faith in the gods, and more importantly, herself.
Princess of Dawn is the first book in The Crystal Crown Trilogy. With its fast-paced story and expansive world, Princess of Dawn is perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Victoria Aveyard.”
Told in past tense, third-person perspective, the fantasy setting drops the story in an undetermined time period—but with medieval/Renaissance “vibes” suggesting that possibility should it be intended as a twist on real-world history.
I mention this as a possibility because authors have, historically (no pun intended), utilized the “gray zones” of what we know about the past and the civilizations in it to craft fictional kingdoms and worlds still within the bounds of “hey, this could have totally happened for all we know”.
Now to get to the part I have not been looking forward to writing, let alone publishing in this blog—but honesty is always the best policy when it comes to reviewing anything, especially creative works and literature:
I didn’t finish the book.
I tried. I really tried. I just couldn’t get through it. And before you immediately mark this off as a “Do Not Read”, listen: not every book is going to be everyone’s cup of tea.
I’ve DNF’d a lot of books, and several of them are eternal classics! I will always extol the praises of Tolkein’s masterpieces, but great googly-moogly, I couldn’t get past the departure of Tom Bombadil’s home because while that was a joy to read, it was the only joy to read.
Nine. Pages. Of Hobbiton genealogy. Complete burnout. I couldn’t…still won’t…I just can’t.
I DNF’d A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas because not only do I find passive past tense as enjoyable as a flea bath, it was the fact that she wrote it, a major publishing house edited it through multiple stages, and everyone in that Big 5 decided yes, this is good! This is not at all lazy writing!
Please forgive me my hubris. I have strong opinions about “writing to market”.
The first page of the first book of The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (co-authored with Brandon Sanderson for the final three books and now a major show series on Amazon Prime) made me go, “Absolutely not,” right there in the middle of the bookstore, out loud for anyone to hear.
Because if I hear the phonetic pronunciation of a name like “Sarah” but it’s spelled “Ccaeraihy”, no.
Side note: I pulled up the Wikipedia page for that series just to see if I could reference an actual character name, and just the general “Setting” description section made my eyes refuse to continue reading.
So when I say I DNF (Did Not Finish, for you bookish-world newbies), it’s not necessarily because the writing was bad or poorly edited or I have a beef with the author. At least not in this case.
In this case, the sentence structure simply did not “jive” well with what I look for in a book, especially fantasy fiction.
Do I think the plot is going somewhere? Absolutely! Do I want to know what happens, who makes it, who biffs it, et cetera? Definitely, I do!
Which is why I kept reading even when I started to realize this wasn’t “doing it” for me.
I will take a moment here to shift a big chunk of blame to a certain bookish content video creator (a.k.a. ye olde “BookTokker”) for making hysterically funny trope parodies about specific genres, and most of them fantasy.
Even though he made up the terms and phrases and names to poke fun at the genre, the names and terms in Princess of Dawn too closely resembled the “trope humor” for me to take any given sentence as seriously as it deserved.
And that’s on me. NOT the author.
About the Author
Fun Fact: there are TWO Megan Gilberts in the creative space, and one of them is an incredible painter who specializes in artwork and Byzantine artistic history.
The other Megan Gilbert wrote Princess of Dawn and—I’m just saying—could totally join forces for a Special Edition cover and interior artwork with her name twin.
I mention this because I almost wrote a whole profile on the wrong Megan Gilbert, only to discover that hey, artistic styles are vibing here…anyway…
Author Megan Gilbert is also an English teacher and peppermint tea drinker in Syndey, Australia, where she strives to inspire young women to achieve greatness.
Conclusion
I encourage every reader who loves palace intrigue and isn’t as picky as I am (hey, I can own up to my flaws!) to add Princess of Glass to their TBR. It truly does have some very alluring plot lines I’m probably going to go back into just to see where they go.
There’s something “up” with the exiled princess who just randomly showed up at the reading of her enemy’s will. Just sayin’.
Did you read the book and want to add to this review? Share your feedback in the comments!
