"The Ugly Princess: The Legend of the Winnowwood"
By: Henderson Smith
Published: February 20, 2014
232 Pages
Source Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. In no way does this affect either my review or my rating.
Okay, first off, this is EXACTLY the kind of book that I would snatch off the shelf if I just walked past it in a bookstore or library. I loved it!
Princess Olive, the protagonist, was everything I wanted (and still want) the be when I was a little girl. She's a princess (what little girl doesn't want to be a princess?), she can talk to animals (everyone should want that) and, even better then the first two, she can turn into animals! What!? I would love to do that!
But enough about childhood dreams. I can't get too much into the book in my review because if I do, I will give away every plot twist, every battle, every spoiler known to mankind. That's how much I loved it. So I'll just tell you what I thought.
Like I said before, I loved Princess Olive. She was kind, generous, brave and didn't care how ugly she got, she wanted to help every animal she came upon. I probably should explain that part.
Olive was the last of the Winnowwood, a race of all female magic users who used their powers to help heal animals. It was a wonderful gift to have.
But with every good, there must be a bad. All Winnowwood were ugly. They had warts and boils and were just hideous. Every time a Winnowwood used their powers, they became even uglier, whether it was a new boil that appeared or a wart or whatever. The animals they helped saw them for their true beauty, but unfortunately, they were the only ones. So the Winnowwood lived in hiding in the forests with their beloved animals. The Winnowwood's power came from a small sixth finger in their left hands, which they called their crux.
When the Winnowwood learned that witches were terrorizing the countryside with their evil powers, their kind and loving natures wouldn't allow them to stand by and nNot do anything to help. So they came out of hiding and defeated the witches. One of the last witches cast a curse on the Winnowwood and created a knife that when used to cut of a Winnowwood's crux, would cause her to be bautiful, but it would also cause her to lose their powers. The uglier a Winnowwood was, the more beautiful she would be when she used the knife. Well, all of the Winnowwood decided to use the knife until there was only one left, Olive. Olive had never met any of the other Winnowwood because this of course happened long before she was born. Part of the curse also stated that if a Winnowwood used the knife before she turned 18, then not only would she lose her powers, but none of her daughters would be born with the power of the Winnowwood. Olive's younger sister Rosaline, chose this path, but Olive wanted nothing more than to keep her powers, no matter how ugly she became. And she always had hope, because there was a legend that stated if a man fell in love with a Winnowwood while she was ugly, she would become beautiful and would still be able to keep her powers.
Okay, okay, I can't go much more into the book because if I do, I will tell you absolutely everything,
and I can't do that. I want you to read it. You should read it. Everyone should. This is a book for everyone. It's got magic, beauty, love (I'm in love with Black Bart!), battles and, best of all, it has a happy ending. Who doesn't like a happy ending? The Ugly Princess was a fantastic book and I highly recommend it for everyone, especially girls. They'll see that with hope, courage and a little magic, anything is possible.
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