I had so many problems with this book. Ok, one problem with the book and like 2 problems with the main character.
First, the book. There are twelve princesses. From four different kingdoms, but there are five kingdoms in the land. Three of these princesses are from another land with four different kingdoms. Some of these twelve princesses are sisters. Some of them have brothers. All of them have parents and the three from the four kingdoms have escorts and siblings back home. This is starting to sound like an algebra equation, right? Now imagine there is zero description of any of these main, secondary and tertiary characters. Nothing beyond their name, age and relation to each other. So, basically you have their names to keep them all straight. It seems that Cellier knew this was a problem because the first third she's constantly reminding you, “Helena our escort” because how am I supposed to know who Helena is other than a random name. Cellier reminds the reader constantly “Alyssa our sister-in-law” but there is almost no other information given about the family back home so why is the sister-in-law so important? How does she fit into things? Can you explain it in a way that means you don't have to constantly remind me she's your sister-in-law? Better yet, can you give me any context or description of the twelve princesses the story revolves around so I can keep them straight? Because their names were not enough for me. Not nearly.
Especially when the main character is Lily and there is also a Lilac somewhere in all those princesses.
My two problems with Lily are that she's judgmental and obtuse with her sister. Every time she criticized the northern girls for being rational or unemotional I wanted to smack her. There's nothing wrong with not reacting emotionally to a situation--whether it's their natural temperament or a curse. But every time Lily thought, “what's wrong with you?” at them I wanted to be like, “no, honey, what's wrong with you that you need to fit everyone into your box of acceptable and behavior in a crisis and judge what everyone else is doing as right or wrong?”
Also I couldn't stand how Lily is with her sister, Sophie. Lily isn't protective in a healthy, “I love my sister and want to keep her safe” way. She's protective in a “It's my responsibility to keep you safe because you are incapable of keeping yourself safe and also you're not allowed to make your own choices because I need to keep you safe and even if you make you're own choices I'm not going to respect them because I know better than you do and I am going to keep you safe” way. It's not protective, it's patronizing. It's insulting to Sophie to completely disregard her decisions. And it's obnoxious.
The super annoying part of it is that Lily thinks she's being all noble and valiant with her sister when in any other book that sort of thing would make her the villain of the story.
Oh and problem the second with the book! The whole thing with Prince Jonathan was weird in the beginning. They literally just met and he’s totally “so sorry this happened to you” like to her specifically, like they've been friends for years and he cares so deeply for her. Dude, you just met! And she’s clinging to him like he’s an old fringed. But they just met! Once the story progresses and they get to know each other a bit things settle into a more believable connection.
So all that is why this book got 2.5 stars. I finished reading it because outside of those things it's not horrible. Other than there's a “Tourney” and by the end I was thinking, “Go ahead, say tourney one more time. I dare you.” But the twist on the fairy tale is unique and the characters are all pretty decent if you don't try to actually keep track of who is who and how they're connected and just roll through the names. And it does do a good job of including those other characters in the story enough that I want to read the other books in the series to see what happens to the rest of the crew.