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I enjoyed A Princess of Roumania a lot; the sequel -- not so much. While it has many of the features of the previous volume -- a complicated, slowly-unfolding plot, interesting magic, a clever alternate history that is revealed in a fairly naturalistic way (ie no huge infodumps) -- the characters this time around pretty much lack any kind of agency -- they are pushed around by Fate (or, really, the Author's thumb) which they experience as a sort of waking dream. This can be used to good effect,
Draws you in, holds you spellbound.
So, you're Miranda and you've recently been taken via magical means to a magical land that your dad once ruled before he was killed and replaced by someone else who was also killed. Your real mom is under house arrest, your weird aunt is orchestrating stuff through mysterious letters and dreams and people you've never met want to kill you without explaining what exactly makes you so dangerous. Oh and your best friend has been turned into a dog while your other friend got his missing hand replace...
After finishing this book, the second of a series of four, I honestly didn't have any enthusiasm to continue. Partly this is due to the fact that the author split up into four books what is essentially one. The separate books don't have individual story arcs, just another series of confrontations that the protagonists feebly struggle against. I can't help but think of this book like a soap opera. Conflicts are not overcome so much as new ones supersede the old ones. Bleh. This was even more frus...
I enjoy the plot of this series a great deal. I found the writing in this second installment much improved over the first. I very much enjoy the use of magic in these books, it's a far less complicated sort of magic than what is described in many fantasy novels. The magic in these books is more of an instinctual sort of magic, without a lot of explanation required. Something about the way these stories are structured, the natural quality of the magic, and the use of "spirit animals", reminds me
I have no idea where this series is going, but Park has a way of holding my interest/investment in the characters even as I’m constantly whispering “what the hell” as I’m reading. At this point I’m going to trust the blurbs comparing this to John Crowley (and the quote from Crowley himself) and keep going, hoping that like Crowley’s Aegypt series, Park will bring all the disparate threads together in a way that makes sense by the end. (Or at least some semblance of sense.)
I love this series beyond reason. I find this whole Roumanian world to be fascinating, filled with a weird mix of magic, wishful thinking and history. Maybe I wish my having to work every day really was just a figment of someone else's imagination ... wait, what if I get transported to Germany next week? Maybe it won't be for work.
Not all alternate history is of the classic mold. You know the drill. Lee wins at Gettysburg, and the world is different because of it. Varus' legions aren't slaughtered by the Germanic tribes, and Rome continues on and on. The Spanish armada conquers England, and Shakespeare turns out to be a hero to the oppressed English. The Roumania novels are definitely different. The first novel, a Princess of Roumania, started ordinarily enough, with Andromeda, Peter and Miranda slowly discovering that th...
Why can't I stop reading these books? They're not that good!
This book continues the tale begun in A Princess of Roumania in which a young woman named Miranda Popescu learned she was hidden away in our world but is a princess caught amidst political intrigue in an alternate *real* world where Roumania is one of the world's superpowers and is busy fighting off the advances from Germany in a Victorianesque era. The goings-on get even stranger in this second book (of a quartet) and we follow the exploits of Miranda and her friends Peter and Andromeda. Peter
In the second book of Paul Park's "Princess of Roumania" saga, he continues to upend everything you thought you knew about the fantasy novel. He still pushes firmly against a standard "Hero's Journey" trope by giving his characters strong senses of self-determination as well as by setting up goals that we, as readers, believe we understand, but prove far more elusive as they're neared. He also, brilliantly, tantalizes with magic without ever allowing us to feel confident in it.Magic in the world...
This was a follow-up to A Princess of Roumania. I liked it about as well as that book. They're not my favorite fantasy, and they move a little bit slowly for me, but they are definitely worth reading.
See rating for first book lol.
Tiptree shortlist 2008
Suffers less from the pacing problems of A Princess of Roumania; I especially like the character development of Peter and Andromeda in this volume. I am looking forward to reading the last book in this trilogy.
This is really good! I liked it much better than A Princess of Roumania. You still have to bear with the story, because a lot of times (as with the first book) something happens that won't make sense until a whole scene or so has played out. Definitely worth reading, though, and I'm excited to see what happens next!
It's been a while since I read A Princess Of Roumania, and my memory of what happened in that books is a bit sketchy, but I remember enjoying it enormously, so I'm delighted to have the next three books in the series to dive into. Miranda Popescu grows up in a small town in America, only to discover that she is, in fact, in a hiding place. Our world is merely a conjuring designed to keep her safe from her enemies. She is, in reality, a princess of Greater Roumania, and when our world vanishes, s...
Seems like an interesting series. Looking forward to reading more.
I'm glad I reread this after finding a paperback copy. I remember reading it impatiently, frustrated by its characters, uneasy in its world. Now I find it wondrous.
