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Review: The Princess Protection Program

By Alex London
New York: Greenwillow Books, 2024. Fiction. 212 pages.

Princess Rosamund, otherwise known as Sleeping Beauty, awakes to a strange prince kissing her awake and she promptly runs away. Where is a rogue fairy tale princess supposed to go? Through a Door of Opportunity and into the Orphans' Home Educational Academy, or HEA. The school, populated by other fairy tale runaways, offers special training to help the former princesses adapt to life in "reality." Rosamund begins to gain confidence in her life of a regular teenager, until monsters called Uponatimes start to close in --ready to drag all the princesses back to their stories. Before it's too late, Rosamund and her friends need to take control of their own stories to determine their own fates.

This fractured fairy tale will appeal to fans of the genre, and Easter egg references to other fairy tale retellings are especially fun. This is a fun, quickly-paced fairy tale adventure that sees our favorite fairy tale princesses become action heroines. 

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