Princess Academy

Princess Academy, Book 1

By: Shannon Hale

Narrated by: Laura Credidio

Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. In a year's time, the prince himself will come and choose his bride from among the girls of the village.

The king's ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess. Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh academy mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and her own conflicting desires to be chosen and win the heart of her childhood best friend. But when bandits seek out the academy to kidnap the future princess, Miri must rally the girls together and use a power unique to the mountain dwellers to save herself and her classmates.

©2005 Shannon Hale (P)2013 Full Cast Audio and AudioGO

Critic reviews

"Shannon Hale writes deft, lyrical, wonderful fantasy." (Holly Black, author of The Spiderwick Chronicles and Tithe)

So we’ll done

Was very entertaining and was narrated very nicely. This is my second time reading and I love the narrator!

Slow beginning with exciting ending.

Slow pace until chapter 13. A little bit annoying if you a grown up, but is getting better toward the end. A good read for teenage girls since it is about the friendship and first love.

Nostalgia City

This was SO well done. Didn’t realize it was a full cast recording. Shannon Hale is such a good writer and it all took me back to my childhood. 1000/10

Great book!

I love Princess Academy! The writing is so descriptive and elegant and I really enjoyed the narration. The story is definitely five stars.

Amazing!

This is such a good book! It is a great story with fun characters and an easy to understand plot. Although it would be better without the singing parts (which aren't always the best) it is a book I will 100% recommend to anyone!

Amazing

Not expecting to care for the book or the reading of it, imagine my surprise and delight at such a refreshing, well crafted story that doesn’t have morally objectionable language nor situations. The production was breathtaking. Good Job All!

Overall, great book

Much more interesting than ‘just another princess book’, with way more plot than just romance and princesses, while still keeping in touch with the royal theme. The full cast was definitely interesting but I don’t know if it was worth it, a lot of the girls sound the same. The bandit chapters we’re probably my least favorite, the way it was resolved could have been better but it’s not terrible. Miri, the protagonist, feels very ‘main character ’, or just always seems to have the spotlight and being important all the time, still a great book and I greatly enjoyed it

!minor spoilers!

Good story and character development

My daughter and I enjoyed listening to this together and I loved the character development and that even some of the “bad” people were presented as more complex than just good or bad by the end. I always appreciate when books have characters who are complex. The songs/poems at the beginning of each of the chapters were interesting- my daughter didn’t love those parts. Overall, a really sweet story. We enjoyed it a lot.

Finished in One Night.

This story was entertaining, but be forewarned in between each chapter is weird singing. The narrators have nice voices but the music is horrible. For me, it didn't hurt the book. I still enjoyed the story and the singing is very short lived (thank God). The singing & intermittent music is the only reason I took one star away from this book.

As my headline says, I literally finished this book in one night. I got attached to the story and intrigued by the little princesses. They are definitely underdogs. Although I had though the main characters reasons for feeling outcast and what they can do with rock speaking could have been taken so many other places, the author found intriguing ways of moving the story forward in a somewhat predictable but very likable manner.

If you like this book you will like the Selection series even more. Similar idea but more depth. Another good, similar series is the Countess.

Such an inspiring book!

The author of this book describes everything so vividly, so I could easily picture the setting and characters. The storyline is SOOOO well planned and plotted! I can really connect to the character, Miri. PLEASE buy this book!