Review: The Last Princess by Galaxy Craze
Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.
Quick & Dirty: A fast paced novel with a fun heroine and sweet young love. The plot was predictable, but overall this was a good read.
Opening Sentence: The day began as a beautiful and vivid dream.
The Review:
It is 2090 and the world is very different from today. A series of natural disasters ravaged the earth and now all that’s left is a polluted earth with desperate humans. There is very little food, most of the water has been contaminated, and no electronics work anymore. The people are desperate need of a strong leader and they hope to find that in the current King, but his throne is being threatened by a long time enemy of the crown. Cornelius Holister is raising an army with the intent of taking the throne for himself and he will stop at nothing to get it.
Princess Eliza Windsor is the youngest daughter to the King of England. Her mother was poisoned before her eyes when she was a young girl by the evil Cornelius Holister. He manages to kill the king and start a revolution. He also captures Princess Mary and Prince Jamie, Eliza’s brother and sister, but Eliza narrowly escapes capture and flees to the streets of London. She knows that she’s not going to survive long on her own. She makes a plan to join the enemy army, and try to save her brother and sister. Through this process she finds that she is stronger than she ever thought and if the people of England are going to survive they are going to need her help.
Eliza is a fun heroine. She is pretty helpless at first but she grows stronger and more determined as the story progresses. She gets her first taste of independence while training in the camp and it gives her a strength she didn’t know she possessed. You get to experience a lot of firsts with Eliza which made it easy to connect with her. She is smart, but a little bit naive. She has never really had any experience with boys so when she meets a sweet young soldier in the army it is hard for her to resist his charm. She is far too trusting at times, but it fit with her situation. Overall, I thought she was a very likeable character.
Wesley is the dashing young man that sweeps Eliza off her feet. He is very cute and sweet, but he didn’t really stick out to me. He was just like a lot of other boys in YA books, which made him a little boring. I still liked him, I just wanted him to make me swoon more when he came around. His relationship with Eliza was sweet, but a little rushed. I would have liked to have seen it develop more slowly, it would have made it more believable.
This was a good read for me. I liked the premise and the references to the current royal family were amusing. There was good action and it was fairly fast paced. The plot was very predictable, but it was still entertaining. This was the first novel that I read by Galaxy Craze and I really enjoyed her writing. It was engaging and flowed very well. There is a slight cliff hanger at the end and I am very excited to see where the story goes in the next book. I would recommend this to anyone that likes a light, clean dystopian book.
Notable Scene:
The terrified guests turned toward us. My father stood still, aiming a golden, pencil-thin gun at Cornelius. Without warning, he pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Cornelius’s vest making a pinging sound as it fell to the floor. I stared helplessly at the useless bullet, lying like a lost penny on the floor. Cornelius was un harmed, but in the moment of distraction my father ran to me. I felt for one last, brief moment the safety of my father’s arms. Then Cornelius Holister looked up, his eyes narrowed to angry slits.
“No!” I screamed as he pulled the trigger. The bullet entered through my father’s back and exited through his chest. He fell to the floor, his body going limp.
“Dad!” I cried, pressing me hand against his white tuxedo shirt.
“I-I’m so sorry,” he murmured, his voice trembling weakly. “You must run.” He reached for me, but his hand dropped lifelessly to his side as he looked upward and his body went still. In that moment, I knew that my father was gone.
FTC Advisory: Poppy/Hachette Book Group provided me with a copy of The Last Princess. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.