Monday, August 5, 2013

Dealing with Dragons

Book: Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

Description: Cimorene is everything a princess is not supposed to be: headstrong, tomboyish, smart. . . .

And bored. So bored that she runs away to live with a dragon . . . and finds the family and excitement she's been looking for. (from amazon.com)

My Thoughts: Dealing with Dragons was a super-fun book! Quite honestly, I loved it. It had a quiet sense of humor; Wrede pokes quite a lot of fun at what "should" happen in fairy tales, and often how ridiculous it is (or can be, when taken literally). Wrede also does a good job at creating a world where the rules of fairy tales are the rules of life; things like fairy godmothers, beautiful but empty-headed princesses, talking frogs, quests, and the youngest son being the sensible and honest one of the family are simply accepted facts of life.

The other aspect of Dealing with Dragons that I absolutely loved was Princess Cimorene herself: she was an intelligent and sensible heroine, a joy to read about--it was a relief to not spend a book waiting anxiously for the main character to learn some common sense. The other characters were also great to read about. There was a nice mix of the quirky, the normal, and the very obtuse. My only complaint was that all the "good" characters had no faults, and all the "bad" characters had no redeeming or even vaguely nice traits.

A fun book to read when you're looking for some light afternoon or summer reading.

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