Review on: The Runaway Princess by Christina Dodd
Rating: 3/5
The story of a young abandoned girl, twice orphaned – once by her parents and another by her foster mother. Evangeline has always dreamed of living a life in luxury, so when her foster mother disappears without a trace ( and is assumed dead), she takes the money that has been left with her and runs away to fulfill her dream, at least temporarily.
At the start of her adventure, she becomes the mysterious lady who has made many names for herself. Always distancing herself from the people around her, Evangeline gets used to the whispers and looks she gets from everyone, except one – the one she meets at this certain inn in Spain, whose eyes stare at her intently. His eyes frighten her because of their intensity, and she flees to the comfort of her own room. Soon after, that same man forces his way into the room announcing himself as her fiancee, and that she is the runaway princess from his neighboring kingdom. Though Evangeline declines this, the prince finds her statement hard to believe because she replies to them in their own native language.
What eventually occurs throughout the story is the adventure towards their two kingdoms – a journey fraught with peril. It turns out, there are those who want to kill both the prince and the princess, in order to prevent them from eventual marriage which will lead their kingdoms to unite. Throughout their journey, Evangeline begins to fall in love with Prince Danior, who continues to claim she is the princess. Yet how can she be his princess when she knows she didn’t grow up the way he said she has. She can’t deny knowing his language, his history and everything else related to their two kingdoms, since it was a story she had been told, and which she thought had just been a fantasy.
As their story progresses, they both fall in love with each other, but how can a simple girl like her fall for a prince like him, and what if he fell in love with her only because he thought she was the princess. An interesting romance novel that involves so many comical situations between the two lovers who eventually uncover the truths that lay hidden throughout their journey.
One of the few fantasy-related romance novels I’ve read so far, The Runaway Princess involves many thought-provoking events throughout the story that make the readers wonder who Evangeline is in the story. What I liked about the book was the comical dialogues between Evangeline and the prince as they went through their adventure. It was funny and interesting to read how Evangeline reacted to the prince’s statements about the kingdom, the princess, the events, everything. As well, the imagined kingdoms in the story, though not extremely creatively given descriptions in the story, were clear enough to imagine as the story unfolds.
What I didn’t like about the story is how quick the story seemed to go. Maybe, it was unavoidable since the events did require a quick-paced plot, but personally, I would have liked a slower-paced story for the two main characters. Also, there were many explanations in the story that seemed too run-on, and parts of the story were a bit confusing to follow. Now that I think about it, the required quick-paced flow of the plot could be the reason why everything was too hard to take in all at once. If I were the female character in the story, I’d probably feel the same way as well.
Even so, this book had many note-worthy points that made it an interesting read. Honestly though, it’s not my kind of story; maybe it is for some other people, but not for me. 🙂
