I haven't liked many of the SC YA book award nominees thisnsummer, but this book was kind of fun to read. I don't know if it will appeal to many high school students, though. ( )

I usually am not crazy about historical novels but Prisoners in the Palace is a very sweet story of Liza who through unfortunate circumstances becomes the maid to Princess Victoria. The title says it all: "Prisoners in the Palace: How Princess Victoria became Queen with the Help of Her Maid, a Reporter, and a Scoundrel" . I loved this book. ( )

Adult Reader Reaction: I loved this book from beginning to end. This is historical fiction at its best. The story is compelling, with plenty of suspense / mystery and great characters. I found myself wanting to dig more deeply into 19th Century history and Victoria's ascent to the throne.

Pros: Part mystery, part history - readers will be intrigued by this compelling story. This has excellent potential as a high interest / low readability book.

I gave this one 100 pages, but I couldn't finish it. I know that it's a YA, but it's definitely a young YA - I was hoping for an historically accurate telling of Victoria's younger days, but this definitely isn't it. The main character, Liza, finds herself in the position of needing work when her parents are killed in an accident, and the sequence of events that lands her a job as a lady's maid to Victoria just wasn't believable. This is the third book in as many weeks that I've given up on, which is pretty rare of me, usually - maybe I just have no patience this month, but with so many books to read, I don't feel like wasting my reading time on something that I'm not enjoying!

ETA: My one-star is simply a reflection of my attitude towards the book - going with GRs rating descriptions I "didn't like it." I'm sure it could be enjoyed by younger readers, or any reader looking for something different, this just wasn't for me. ( )

The research on this was fantastic. First, there are excepts from Victoria's actual diaries, which are really eye-opening. If you think of Victoria as the old woman dressed in all black or associate her with the idea of prudish morals and repressed emotions, you will be in for a surprise! Though I am enough of an anglophile to know that wasn't true, what I didn't know was of the terrible conditions Victoria was raised in until she gained the throne. It still seems almost unbelievable that she was kept more-or-less prisoner in her own home, while her mother's lover schemes to get the power of the throne for himself.

What I didn't like was the character of Liza. I'm not sure the story needed her and the whole concept that installs her in the palace as a servant in the first place seems contrived. She wasn't very fleshed out, and ends up a bit subsumed in the character of Victoria.

However, due to the solid history, I did still enjoy reading it. ( )