Likes:
HEA
The Author rewards being honest over being polite.
The Hero (H) and heroine bond over shared characteristics and actually do emotionally love one another
Beauty is accurately portrayed.
The prince finally figures out Claudette is a person too and is worthy of being treated with respect.
Dislikes:
The author never illustrates how to successfully refuse to cooperate with a powerful evil using faith and self-control regardless of the consequences.
For instance, the fairy curses the prince for her own pride and is never admonished for her sin. Taking joy in the misery of others is evil because we are supposed to love others as ourselves. Also, taking someone’s free will denies the fruit of the Spirit of self control (Gal 5:22-23). If someone is verbally abusive or a verbal reviler, then we are not even to eat with the person, much less cooperate with any attempt of theirs to oppress ourselves or others (Cor 5:11). We are to admonish these sins and resist cooperating with such a sinner to the point of death, because God must be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth, and has set us free for freedom.We are commanded not to become slaves again even if there are those who would enslave us. No one resists the fairy to the point of death in order to protect the freedom Christ died to grant. The freedom to speak truth and go to heaven even if we die for showing evil people their sin so they have a chance to repent and live.
The prince learns to be afraid of speaking the truth instead of learning anger management skills that include drawing safe and consistent boundaries with successively severe consequences leading up to exile for those who demonstrate the desire to use him. Then, he could protect himself and be honest without being unnecessarily socially or physically destructive. In the end, the prince’s temper isn’t fixed, he’s just been abused so much he’s passive aggressive toward the fairy instead of being forthright and rejoicing with the truth that allows him to admonish manipulative and deceitful sin. Exchanging outward destruction for inward psychological damage because he remains chronically stressed and afraid of a fairy’s whims is not a helpful trade.
Worse, the prince never learns to judge character based on actions that show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). Learning this would help him choose safe friends and romantic partners.
One one hand, the prince did learn to value honesty in Claudette as the H and h fall in love based on a common liking for music and the tendency to be bluntly honest even if it makes someone lose their temper. I don’t object to the blunt honesty but, on the other hand, he only ever learns to value it in Claudette. Everyone in his kingdom has the spiritual right and responsibility, gifted by God, to be honest without fear of oppression due to the socioeconomic power of people who might not like having their sins admonished and publicized if they don’t repent. Even if powerful evil people kill a whistleblower for admonishing sin, the whistleblower is still spiritually obligated to admonish sin honesty and clearly. So in the end, Claudette gets to be honest with no recriminations but what about everyone else? Not everyone in this story can marry the prince.
The story ends abruptly without closing some storylines.
The story hints that Madam is eternally punished for her selfishness, and that’s understandable because she never repents, but her fate is mostly up to the imagination of the reader.
We never find out if Seline sets safe boundaries for Estelle and refuses to continue the relationship if Estelle doesn’t repent (1 Cor 5:11).
We never find out if the prince sets up a social safety net for people who have horrible luck, like Seline’s father.
We never find out if absent fathers are ever legally called to account for child support, like Estelle’s paramour.
Estelle emotionally abuses her child by treating her horribly according to family members and Estelle never has to account for it and the child is never rescued.
We never discover if Seline gets to have a real adventure by documenting new territory or taking diplomatic trips for her kingdom on behalf of the new King or if she’s just a perpetual third wheel who never becomes her own person.
There was enough that I really liked about honesty taking the primary spot over other virtues that I gave it 3 stars. There was enough lacking in the development of independence that refuses to yield the truth about the importance of personal faith values even under oppression, that I took one star. People do sin, but they are capable of being faithful too, despite evil abuse. There was a lack of sufficient development of healthy relationships and appropriate setting of safe boundaries to provide psychological safety that I took another star.
I do recommend the book. I hope the author eventually writes an epilogue for all the loose ends.
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