Nick's review of Nobody's Princess
Nobody's Princess by Esther Friesner
Nick's review
rating:
recommended for:
readers of historical fiction or Greek myths
status:
Read in November, 2007
Leave it to Esther Friesner to come up with a really new and strange way to tell the story of Helen of Troy. I think she may have had to condense several Greek myths and legends to set up what she is doing, but so far it’s working. This is the start of a multi-volume retelling of things from her side, beginning with her childhood. By the end of this volume she is 14, rebellious and flatly refusing to sit back and be a typical good girl, even though she is destined to be Queen of Sparta.
In this story, Helen constantly rebels, wants to learn the same kinds of things that her brothers are allowed to learn, and frequently endangers herself and everyone in the vicinity with some of her ideas. In a normal story I would hope that she would learn and grow from these mistakes, but here, I think that Friesner is giving Helen a background which will eventually solidify into an explanation of how things ended up going so wrong. Because we know how things ended, the interesting part here is WH...more
In this story, Helen constantly rebels, wants to learn the same kinds of things that her brothers are allowed to learn, and frequently endangers herself and everyone in the vicinity with some of her ideas. In a normal story I would hope that she would learn and grow from these mistakes, but here, I think that Friesner is giving Helen a background which will eventually solidify into an explanation of how things ended up going so wrong. Because we know how things ended, the interesting part here is WH...more
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