The Frog Prince (Faerie Tale Collection) sounded so good. A retelling of the fairy tale “The Frog Prince”, this story by Jenni James had a fun twist on the story of the prince spellbound into a frog. Our hero, Prince Nolan, has been engaged to Princess Blythe since both were infants, but he’s pretty sure she’s a rather nasty piece of work. To find out he has himself turned into a frog (talking of course) and transported to Princess Blythe’s favorite pond in her mother’s castle grounds.
Princess Blythe meanwhile has despaired of ever being loved or finding someone to love. Nolan’s stilted letters show him as a conceited, obnoxious bore and she’s not interested in marrying such a man. Of course she and Nolan-the-frog end up having a great time together and fall in love.
The plot idea is cute, the story nice and short so why is this just a so-so read? Maybe it’s the 10 pages of pontificating at the end, or Blythe’s too-perfect nature or her oft-repeated desire to have someone “see her”. I don’t know exactly what the problem is, but I found the first 30 minutes OK and the last 10 tedious. Yes, that’s right. This is well under an hour read. And by the time I finished, I was glad not to have wasted any more than 40 minutes.
The Frog Prince has a 4.5 rating on Amazon with almost all the reviews complimenting the humor, plot and characters. It is not listed as a YA fantasy, but would appeal to romantic minded teens. It didn’t work for me.
Leave a Reply