The Princess Plot by Kirsten Boie was a core book of my tweenage years, I loved this book so much with its contemporary disguise masking a deeper and more poignant story so I was happy to pick this book for the “last read at least 10 years ago” prompt for February.
This book follows Jenna who sneakily auditions for a role in a movie despite her strict mother not wanting her to go. She gets the part! And she’s flown off to Scandia to meet the director of the film. But everything is not as it seems. This is such a fun book and I honestly didn’t expect so much from it.
What I mean by that is that I remembered the plot, but I didn’t expect Boie to so clearly make points about politics, classism, racism and to explain terrorist groups so well. She points out things which are present in our own societies (Boie is German but as a Brit, everything registered too) and utilises the made up country of Scandia to demonstrate the issues here without angering any one country.
That’s another point too, I had never known that this was a translated work! A surprising number of my childhood reads were translated from other languages and I love it!
Back to the review 😂
This is the first book in a duology, however, it stands on its own really well too. I think it’s a great book to give a tween/teen and a fun read as an adult too! Of course the nostalgia makes me biased, but I also genuinely believe that this is a great MG/YA book (it’s one of those rare books that targeted at the younger end of YA).
Have you read this book before? Did you know it was translated? Let me know!
Abi of Pellinor 