The Last Princess Review

Author: Galaxy Craze
Title: The Last Princess

GoodReads Summary:

A series of natural disasters has decimated the earth. Cut off from the rest of the world, England is a dark place. The sun rarely shines, food is scarce, and groups of criminals roam the woods, searching for prey. The people are growing restless. When a ruthless revolutionary sets out to overthrow the crown, he makes the royal family his first target. Blood is shed in Buckingham Palace, and only sixteen-year old Princess Eliza manages to escape. Determined to kill the man who destroyed her family, Eliza joins the enemy forces in disguise. She has nothing left to live for but revenge, until she meets someone who helps her remember how to hope-and love-once more. Now she must risk everything to ensure that she does not become... The Last Princess.

My thoughts:

Okay, I’m gonna just get out with it and say I give this book a 3. I always get my first impression of books from the cover, and I LOVE this cover! Like I said about Blood Red Road the cover is amazing, I’m in love with the silhouette idea right now. The purple blue colors, the background of London is just breathtaking. The title ‘The Last Princess’ drew me in, because seriously who doesn’t love
a kick butt princess? I had extremely high hopes for this book, and right now the only thing I can say is “ehhh”.

Yes! I’m actually “ehhh”ing this book right now. So here’s how it goes, the story kinda takes on that “the world is ending” thing that so many YA books are doing now. The story picks up after the “17 Days” which were 17 days of chaos. Earthquakes, tsunamis the whole nine yards, so here we are post “17 Days” and England has become a dying country without the knowledge of what countries made it through the 17 days of death. It’s not actually called the 17 days of death, I’m just being dramatic. Although that would’ve been a pretty good name for it…Just saying. So enter Eliza (the story is told from her point of view) and her older sister Mary, younger brother Jamie.

One thing leads to the other, rebellion sparks overthrowing the Monarchy trying to capture/kill all the remaining royals, meaning Eliza and her siblings. So, here we are Eliza gets separated and needs to find a way to get back with her siblings and reclaim the throne. Well, have Mary reclaim the throne since she’s older. Anyways the action kicks in around here; Eliza disguises herself joins up with the Rebels and plans to take them down from the inside. So! Why is it you may ask that I don’t LOVE this book? To put it simply, it’s French Revolution (I’m talking King Louie XVI) meets the Holocaust- Hitler style. No lie, they have death camps. So I found myself cringing at some things mentioned, and having flash backs of History/English class and all that awful stuff. I’m a History geek, so yes I do love an old fashioned historical reference, but this was just depressing.

Not to mention the fact that Jamie has an illness is the only boy, and the girl’s names are Mary and Elizabeth I kept thinking back to Henry VIII’s children. To make things a little clearer: Henry VIII had three kids; oldest son Edward had disease, oldest daughter Mary- also known as Bloody Mary, and Elizabeth I. Quick History refresher. ;) Which speaking of this the whole book is sorta Queen Mary’s (the real one not from the book) rule only opposite. Getting off topic, the point here is, while The Last Princess had some very great characters, it was a bit predictable for me, also somewhat depressing, and took too long to get to the assumed ending. I ended up guessing everything that happened next in the book, and yes, I did get it all right. J  I’m not saying toss this into the “never reading” pile right away, it isn’t too long a read and interesting in it’s on way. But this definitely would land in my “2 o’clock in the morning, I’m not gonna fall asleep let’s see what to read...” pile.  

My rating on this book: 3 out of 5.