Hey, it’s Emily! Greetings and welcome to a new Honeycomb book review! I’ve been on a bit of a fairytale kick lately and have been rereading old childhood favorites as well as new fantasy stories. Princess Academy by Shannon Hale is a book I read in middle school, but I wanted to reread it so I could enjoy the two sequels for the first time. It’s the best of both worlds—a return to a nostalgic favorite and a chance for something new. As I revisited Princess Academy, the profound simplicity of the story struck me. I realized just how much power a narrative can carry when writers whittle it down to the essentials, and that is the crux of what I would like to talk about today. But before I get into my review, let me give a quick summary:
Summary
In Princess Academy, fourteen-year-old Miri lives on Mount Eskel with her father and older sister. The villagers of Mount Eskel work together in the rock quarry where they cut and prepare a mineral known as linder, but Miri’s father says she’s too small to work with the others, which leaves her feeling isolated. The villagers sell their linder to the rest of Danland in the lowlands, but each trading season the villagers scarcely sell enough to get by. When the next round of traders arrives, they bring with them a messenger from the king who announces that the priests of Danland have divined that the prince’s future bride will come from Mount Eskel. Soon after, lowland guards reach the village to escort all the eligible girls to a princess academy, built from linder, where another lowlander, Tutor Olana, will prepare the girls for the day the prince selects one of them.
Many of the girls want to impress the prince and bring wealth and comfort for their families, including Miri who begins studying ardently, learning reading, writing, history, etiquette, diplomacy, and commerce. Commerce, a subject all about trade, helps Miri realize that linder is more precious than Mount Eskel was led to believe, so she uses her new knowledge to help the villagers barter for fairer payment. Through this, Miri shows the Eskelites that she can still help the village flourish, even if she can’t work in the quarry. Miri also discovers a new ability while in the linder-walls of the academy: she can communicate memories and messages through the stone to other nearby Eskelites. She uses her newfound power to connect with the other girls and help them pass their unfair exams from Tutor Olana.
During her time at the princess academy, Miri also befriends Britta, a newcomer to Mount Eskel who came to live in the village after her lowlander parents died. Through Britta, Miri learns more about the lowlands and wishes to one day see it for herself. However, before the prince can return to Mount Eskel to choose a bride, bandits attack the academy and hold the girls captive for ransom. Using her linder-speaking abilities, Miri calls out to the families in the village who reach the academy to rescue the girls and chase away the bandits.
The prince soon arrives to Mount Eskel to select a bride. Before he does, Britta admits to Miri that she lied: her parents are still alive in the lowlands, she’s in love with the prince who she’s known since childhood, and her father sent her to Mount Eskel so she could be the chosen princess and win her family prestige. Miri convinces her friend that her love for the prince is genuine, even if her father’s motives are selfish, and together they meet the prince. The prince proposes to Britta and names the other girls official ladies and Mount Eskel the newest province of the kingdom. At the end of the book, Miri reflects that maybe the priests knew that Mount Eskel didn’t really need a princess, but it did need an academy.
My Review
I loved rereading this book, and as I mentioned, I appreciated the simple yet strong story. Shannon Hale focuses on what’s important for her narrative, rather than allowing it to become muddled. Princess Academy features a straightforward storyline, few but relevant subplots, a down-to-earth world, believable characters, and accessible themes. Let’s explore them together!
A Straightforward Storyline
“On the morrow, all the girls in this village aged twelve to seventeen are ordered to the academy to prepare themselves to meet the prince. One year from now the prince will ascend the mountain and attend the academy’s ball. He himself will select his bride from among the girls of the academy. So let you prepare.”
The plot of Princess Academy focuses on Miri’s new life at the academy and how this experience transforms her. Her main goal is to help her village and the quarry—the center of life on Mount Eskel—which Miri achieves once she uses the lessons she learned about commerce to contribute to her village’s trade. Moreover, Miri discovers that her passion is learning as well as teaching, and the academy helps her realize that she can contribute even more to her village by becoming a teacher and sharing the education she received. Princess Academy is primarily about the power of knowledge and the power of community, and every element of this book sticks with these lessons, with the academy storyline, with Miri’s coming-of-age. Every story should attempt this—to make every thread relevant and effective, so the space it takes up is essential to the whole tapestry. Taking a look at this book’s subplots will give you an even better idea of how Hale accomplishes this.
Relevant Subplots
“She tried to estimate how many blocks of linder had been used to build the foundation of that building, how many bushels of grain it would buy, how much wood to build a chapel big enough to hold the whole village, enough food so no one’s belly felt pinched on a winter’s night... If the traders dealt fairly, her village could benefit from the heaps of wonders the rest of the kingdom seemed to enjoy.”
Though the main plot revolves around the academy and the prince’s arrival, many of this book’s subplots are directly connected to the central storyline. For example, Miri’s education—her newfound ability to read and write and the opportunities this knowledge opens up for her—helps her achieve her goal of finding her place at Mount Eskel, but also helps her reach out to the prince when he arrives. Using the rules of Conversation that Tutor Olana taught the girls, Miri is able to connect with someone so different from her, to empathize with him and build a friendship.
The other subplots, such as Miri learning how to communicate through linder, Miri’s gradual friendship with Britta and gradual romance with a boy from her village named Peder, Miri’s discovery of why her father kept her from the quarry and their subsequent bonding, and several others, all equally connect to the main plot as well and emphasize the story’s themes of education, self-discovery, and community. Hale does not waste a single element of her story, and the details in her world are just as relevant.
A Down-to-Earth World
“Tomorrow’s a red flush in the western sky Tomorrow’s a black hush in the middle night Tomorrow swears the truth of now, now, and now In the trembling blue gasp of the morning light”
The setting of Princess Academy is simple but so very real. Hale introduces readers to Mount Eskel, a small village with a rock quarry at its heart, surrounded by little pink miri flowers and bleating goats. The community here is a tight-knit one and Miri wants to be a part of it so badly; she just can’t understand why her father won’t let her work in the quarry with the other villagers and insists she tend to the goats instead. But Miri’s community helps her. She learns the truth, and learns how much her father loves her, from Doter, a mother-figure in Miri’s life; she learns how valuable her education is and how she has the ability to share it from her sister Marda, who wishes she could have learned at the academy as well; she learns that people have different skill sets and can achieve creative ambitions from Peder, who doesn’t just want to harvest linder but carve it. Hale uses characters to make Mount Eskel alive.
She also does this through the storytelling traditions on Mount Eskel. Hale introduces the story of the bandits in chapter three, which later comes into play when the bandits attack the academy, but every villager knows the story, knows that “Mount Eskel feels the boots of outsiders. Mount Eskel won’t bear their weight” and the girls use this story to unsettle their captors, which eventually leads them to run and leave the girls behind with their families. The stories that make Mount Eskel feel like a real place with a real history also has relevance to the main storyline. (Each chapter also starts with a few lines from other Mount Eskel stories and songs, and this detail brings Miri’s home to life.)
Yet the world Hale creates is a simple one. We see a small village, a rock quarry, flowers, and goats. We have a few stories and songs, we have a few familiar faces, but Hale does not let her world become too big. She alludes to a wider world, the rest of Danland, the lowlands and other kingdoms beyond it, but this story focuses on Miri, her mountain community, and the academy, so that’s what Hale focuses on. And Princess Academy’s magic system is simple as well: the villagers can communicate in the quarry with quarry-speech, but Miri is the first to discover that any linder, even outside the quarry, even the linder veins running under every part of the mountain, can be used to send messages. Hale doesn’t try to impress her readers with bold colorful magic; instead, she allows Miri’s powers to be all about her connection to her home and community with her village. Deep, true, and united.
Believable Characters
“The discussion continued, and Miri leaned into her pa, drowsy from watching the fire. He patted her hair. We have linder in our bones, Doter had said. We. Miri clung to the word, wanting to be a part of it but unsure if she was. If her idea for trading became a success, perhaps then she could be more certain. Her gaze wandered from the gold flames to the darkness the firelight could not reach. Peder might be there, listening, hoping for a chance to carve stone.”
Just like how Hale doesn’t need to impress her readers with flashy magic, she also doesn’t need to impress her readers with a flashy hero. Miri is a simple girl—a fourteen-year-old with legitimate goals, flaws, and insecurities. She wants so badly to find belonging in her community but hasn’t yet learned who she is and what she can contribute. Princess Academy is a story focused on Miri’s growth and coming-of-age, one that shows all young girls that they still have time to learn, share their experiences, and find their place. Miri is young, curious, outspoken, lively, funny, clever, but she’s still just a girl. Yet Hale writes Miri in a way that readers can truly believe she is capable of discovering the secrets of quarry-speech, capable of assuring fair trade for her village, capable of befriending a prince, and capable of saving all her friends from the bandits.
All of Hale’s other characters feel just as believable, yet just as natural. Britta is shy but kind, Peder is awkward but determined, Katar is sharp but discontent, Tutor Olana is strict but well-meaning, Prince Steffan is stoic but friendly. Every character seems one way at first glance, but once they connect with Miri, Hale shows them to be real and human, with their own fears and dreams. These genuine characters emphasize even more how important it is to connect with others.
Accessible Themes
“Maybe the priests did know what they were doing. Maybe Mount Eskel didn’t need a princess, just an academy.”
Most of the other sections have already covered Princess Academy’s themes: education and the power of knowledge, self-understanding and personal growth, and human connection. But this story also deals with language and communication, family and marriage, home and belonging, and memory. These could be abstract and complex themes, but Hale ties them to tangible people and situations and makes the complex simple. The best storytellers follow similar techniques. In the words of Charles Mingus, a composer and author:
“Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.” —Chalres Mingus
Learning From Literature
I will forever insist that reading is the best teacher for writing. If your stories are important to you, if you want to publish them and make them accessible to others, if you want to do them justice, then you will learn. You will work hard, study your craft, practice, and read. Just like Miri did.
I really recommend reading this series. Not only is it a charming and light read, but you can learn so much by analyzing Hale’s writing and simplistic storytelling. Princess Academy’s sequel, Palace of Stone, is just as good, and I am so excited to read the final book of the trilogy soon, The Forgotten Sisters. Let us know if you’ve read anything from Shannon Hale! We would love to hear your thoughts on these books as well.
And, as always, the other editors and I here at Honeycomb want to help you polish your story, so if you would like to receive editing on your book—developmental editing, line editing, copyediting, or proofreading—or contact us for a short consultation call just to chat and get some feedback, then please do not hesitate to reach out! We are passionate about our craft, love storytelling, and want to connect with you!
Until then, bee brilliant!
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