Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Guest Blog--Did you see what that girl is reading?

I sat by myself at a table in the Rayburn House Office Building Cafeteria on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. I briefly glanced around at the people sitting near me. One person was reading The NY Times; another person was reading The Hill; and I was reading The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. I must have looked quite educated and ambitious among my colleagues - sigh!!

I had started reading Goose Girl on my way home from Paris last fall. After getting a little queasy, I put the novel down only to pick it up again several months later and in Washington, DC. I thought I'd start where I left off and only read for an hour or two on a Sunday evening. The hour or two turned into midnight and me having to force myself to put the book down so I wouldn't be dead for work. I opened Goose Girl on the short metro ride to work and quickly found a quiet place (which is virtually impossible on the House campus) so I could continue reading during my lunch break.

The novel begins with a princess named Anidori and how she grows up learning to speak to animals - weird. Ani turns sixteen and is sent to the neighboring kingdom for an arranged marriage - exciting. This is when I really started getting into the story.

Of course I pictured myself as a princess throughout the novel and the prince was extra attractive - I'd want nothing less from a prince. I ended up skipping a lot of the description and details throughout the novel and just read the conversations which I felt really kept me informed and into the story. Ani eventually learned to speak to the wind which I grazed over- it was just a little too weird for my liking.

The rest of Goose Girl was enthralling and violent with a little romance too - the perfect combination for a teenage girl or a twenty-seven year old woman.

I will definitely pick up Hale's Princess Academy since I always enjoy stories about princesses. I can admit it.

1 comment:

Blogger said...

I've also heard that Book of a Thousand Days may be good.