The False Prince

[chocolatepot]

Just devoured this book that's been in my Kindle library for ages - The False Prince, by Jennifer A. Nielsen. I don't read much if any YA anymore, but you know that I LOVE a story about royal succession, so I had to.

I don't know if this counts as a spoiler, but I guessed the major plot twist from the summary of the book, and then when I started reading it, if I hadn't already I definitely would have, because Nielsen is clearly very influenced by Megan Whalen Turner. To the point where I almost have to call the book an homage to The Thief?

Like, Sage is Gen, Conner is an evil version of the Magus, Tobias is a good version of Ambiades, Roden is Sophos until he isn't, Mott is good Pol and Cragen or whatever his name is is evil Pol.

Even Sage/Jaron's internal voice is so similar to Gen's - there were constant veiled statements that would have been amazing on a reread, except that since I figured it out almost immediately, I got to catch them the first time. "Oho, he says his father was an unsuccessful musician, that's not incompatible with him being the king even though everyone assumes it means his father was a professional musician who sucked at his job" "He says 'we both knew I was dancing poorly' because he *knows* he's doing it as it's an act" etc. It was a bit annoying but also cute and like I said, I devoured the book.

The one thing that niggled at me is that he's supposed to be 14. And, like, Eugenides is around there in The Thief, but he's also genuinely whiny and obnoxious and smug about pulling the wool over people's eyes. Sage/Jaron sounds a bit too much like an adult and I keep forgetting that he's a middle-schooler. For the purposes of the plot, he has to be fairly young - Conner is taking boys out of orphanages to do a little reality-show competition for who can be the best pretender to the throne, so that he can install one on the throne and control him as a puppet - but it was a liiiiittle unbelievable.

Still, I am psyched to read the sequels, particularly to find out what will happen to Imogen, pls make Imogen become the queen pls Jennifer.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

And, like, Eugenides is around there in The Thief, but he's also genuinely whiny and obnoxious and smug about pulling the wool over people's eyes

I genuinely did not realize that Gen was supposed to be a young-to-middling teenager in The Thief and everything about it made SO much more sense when someone pointed it out to me afterwards.

[chocolatepot]

Yeah, I think my impression of him when I read it was that he was late teens/early 20s, because I was probably a tween at the time and he seemed so competent and smart. I went, "ohhhhhh, I get it now," when I a) came back to it years later and b) found someone else making the point online.

[troisoiseaux]

I read it in my early 20s and thought he was in his early 20s, but in my defense, I know a lot of very dumbass men in their early 20s.