Book Review: Palace of Mirrors by Margaret Peterson Haddix

While Davan was at Do Jump yesterday for her marathon day (starting this term, she's helping with a preschool class, gets a brief dinner break, then does Zig Zags, then an adult acro class for a total, including driving, of 7 Do Jump related hours away from home), I went for a walk with my trusty MP3 player. I knew I was close to the end of the book I was listening to, but was not concerned, as I'd put three more books onto my player. Sure enough, about a half an hour into my walk, Palace of Mirrors came to an end. I went to playlists to start another book. There was only one track in the playlist. Darn. That's okay, I'll go for one of the others. With a sinking heart, I realized there was only one track there, too. Sure enough, it was three for three. I continued to walk without, gasp!, a book to listen to. I wasn't worried because, for the later classes, I had a book to read, a journal to write in and a library where I could get on the computer, if I so desired. At least, so I thought. The journal and library with a computer were true enough, but I'd left my book behind. All-in-all, it wasn't a great evening for books for me.

Palace of Mirrors, though, was a good book. It's the story of Cecilia, who is a princesses being raised in a remote village as a commoner to keep her safe from the enemies of the kingdom who killed her parents while a decoy sits on the throne. She's prodded by events into thinking that it is time for her to take up her responsibilities as princess when she is 14. She and her best friend, Harper, travel to the capitol. Of course, it doesn't end up being that straight forward. Intrigue and adventure ensue.

I mostly enjoyed the book with it's various twists and turns, although some of Cecilia's more bone head moves bugged me. Davan, who listened to it before I, commented that it was pretty good, but Cecilia is a too whiny. There were times that I thought she was whiny, but I didn't find her overly so.

Palace of Mirrors was entertaining and I appreciated how it all turned out. I give it a 7.5.