I have lost count how many times I have read "the Princess." I think I must be somewhere north of a dozen by now. To be honest, that is where I stopped counting. It may be more than twenty. I own two copies: the one my aunt gifted me on my fifteenth birthday almost a decade ago and the reprint with Shelby standing in her wedding dress -- I refuse to crack it open until my original one is falling to pieces.Is this the greatest romance novel ever written? Certainly not. I have such a fondness for it because I saw such parallels between myself and Shelby. She is tall, smart, and quiet. She has little of what you might call a personal life. She has no idea what intimacy with a man feels, let alone is supposed to look like. She is fiercely loving, though, but honest in her struggle. An arranged marriage is a strange position to be put in. I cannot imagine it, although I wonder, as I enter my 24th year, if my family is going to break down and do just that.Each time I have read "the Princess," I have found something new. Some reads, the characters' faith is most important to me. Other times I find it overwhelmingly distracting and challenging because I do not pray like that, I do not spend time in the Word like that. (Getting competitive with a book, oh dear.) However, as I have gotten older, and it has been almost a decade since this book has entered my life, the relationship between Nick and Shelby means more to me now at 24, than it did to me at 15. At 15, I could not even wrap my mind the idea of actually having anything with a man besides a crush from a safe distance, do not cross this line here. At 24, 95% of my friends are married or getting married. You think I am exaggerating maybe, but do three years at a Christian university, transfer to a public university and join a Christian organization and the results are still the same.Of those 95%, the first children have been announced in the last year. So many of my close friends are parents now, it is hard to wrap my mind around it. I feel so behind sometimes. I am still this tall, quiet unless you know me, obnoxiously geeky girl. I sell wedding dresses for a living. I am surrounded by it all the time.And yet, I read this book often when I am down with the flu. It only takes me a couple hours and the font is large enough not to aggravate any headaches. I read this book and it helps me remember that, despite how not grounded in reality this love story may be, it is okay to not have relationship experience. It is okay to be 24 and never been kissed or shared any sort of intimacy with a man inside a formal relationship. It is all okay. It takes time. It takes learning. About yourself and about others. That is what I love about Nick and Shelby's relationship. It is awkward. They have huge fights. They have small fights. They figure out how to walk through it. They learn to love each other and protect each other. They screw up. They crave each other and are certainly not shy about it even if the book itself is modest. I understand that real life is not like this. There is no prince to make me royal. I suffer no abnormal delusions that I will be that girl, the one to marry the celebrity gentleman and be whisked away in a hurricane of romance. I almost laugh at the notion. What this story has taught me as my circumstances have changed and become fluid to incorporate spousal dynamics, is that it is okay to let life happen. It is okay to embrace the awkwardness of it. To embrace the fights. To embrace the fact that boundaries and comforts and risks are constantly evolving. And it is nice to have real life examples that demonstrate that it is possible to love an imperfect person, like Nick and Shelby, and not have it be ridiculous and fantastical, but grounded in a vow. Reading this at 15, I could not imagine what it would look like to actually stand up at an altar and pledge myself to another person for life. I see a smattering of friends do it every year now and I work most days with girls doing the exact same thing. Shelby and Nikolai taught me many things. Not being afraid of the idea of loving someone, period, with my present lack of experience being chief among them.
I had a lot of problems with this book so I'll just go with the highlights. The book was poorly written. There, I've said it. I only finished it because it fulfilled a reading challenge requirement and it was painful for the last two hundred pages. There was far too much telling of events and not enough showing. What we do see usually hurts the characters. We see them being good Christians but we almost never see their thoughts, making their actions feel disingenuous. I didn't hate the heroine, but that's only because there wasn't enough character there to hate. Her life is unreal, even before becoming royalty. The only friends of hers that we really see are the elderly women suffering from cancer who she attends Bible study with. If she's so wonderful and likable shouldn't she have friends her own age? Her only real flaw seems to be that she cares too much. Her mistakes stem from a need to help people that ranges from simple generosity to actually endangering her life and health. Unfortunately, this issue is never discussed. She is praised constantly for this selflessness when what she really needs is to be told that she's allowed to care about herself. I was also very disappointed in the lack of royal issues. After the discussion of "the tradition" (requiring the prince to marry by age 26) the book might as well be about normal, everyday people -- it might have been better that way. The royal family is seen moving about as easily as normal people do, as if there would be no issue when the heir to the kingdom suddenly stops by a small family restaurant. Even the tradition falls by the wayside, no one seeming to care that its purpose probably had something to do with producing an heir.
What do You think about The Princess (2006)?
A beautiful story that has come at a good time in my life. My mom gave this to me years and years go to read and it took me until now to actually read it. And I loved it!A beautiful story of love that is not easily given and is fiercely fought for. This book shows that even when you don't love someone, sometimes it can be worked for. Taking place in a fictional place where arranged marriages were still taking place, this one shows that even when you marry for connivence love is still possible. The journey that Nikolai and Shelby take is breath-taking. God is in every page and in every thought of these characters. I am convicted, after having read this book, that I don't have the kind of relationship with God that I need to have. Though this was a fictional book, the relationship these characters have with the Lord is not one that is difficult to make into a reality. I am encouraged to read this and I hope to get my own copy (since this one was my mother's) and I can read it again and again and maybe put it to better use then just reading it for fun.
—Shirleon
I am not going to lie, I picked this book up mostly because the protagonist's name was Shelby and because I am not quite over my obsession with royalty and princesses. But honestly, this is probably the worst book I have read this year. It is predictable, cheesy and not even remotely interesting. It got to the point where I was merely skimming the book, when I decided it wasn't even worth my time. I am going to have to provide some case-in-point evidence later. I really couldn't believe how bad it was.
—Shelbi
So uh this is a Christian book, the kind where you can read passages from the Bible and chapter references such as Genesis, Matthew… I honestly feel awkward reading it. A phone! They have a phone! Yes obviously I am a bit shocked. I never expected to see (or read) something about a phone, sports car, golf, limousine etc. Well one thing’s for sure, they may be prince and princess but this book is surely not regency. I was expecting regency you know. I got deluded. This is more like Princess Diaries, except that it’s more religious. I have so many issues with this book. Well for one the conversations are not engaging. The storyline is predictable. The writing is plain and simple. The characters are annoyingly faultless/prefect. I feel like I’m reading from a Bible story. And the attempts at intimacy are awful. The humor is barely laughable. I don’t get the sudden mood changes. No preamble, no nothing. GET OVER YOUR DEAD WIFE! Nickolai is annoying.The sweet gestures which were supposed to make me a giggling mess have no effect whatsoever. Shelby blushes at ridiculous things! Spare me. What is so embarrassing about getting a burger? She’s angry at Nickolai, sometimes scared but I don’t get why! This is so dumb. Worrying is a sin. A sin. Okay. Flirtations. Are you trying to be funny? Cause I’m not laughing.“Thank you” “I’m glad you told me” OH MY GOD STOP IT. IT’S GRATING ON MY NERVES. And who says “I think I’ll lie down” when hit with a ball? Ridiculous. HE GOT HIT BY A BALL. You don’t need to panic. HE GOT HIT BY A BALL. IN THE HEAD. WHO CARES? HE’S NOT GONNA DIE. What in the name of fuck was that about? So weird. Also did I mention that the ‘intimacies’ didn’t make me want to curl my toes? Quite the contrary. It’s giving me goosebumps. And not in a good way either. And they’re all crybabies! Oh and another thing, do you really have to get your husband’s permission for everything? Or say “thank you” EVERY FREAKING SECOND?!“May I hold you?” “If I can hold you back” OH MY GOD ARE YOU FOR REAL WHAT THE HELL IS THIS OH MY GOD ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!I have never rolled my eyes so much while reading. I think I over rolled them. And I had a migraine all throughout.
—Roanne Araneta
