The Princess Game

Faraway collection

By: Soman Chainani

Narrated by: Jess Nahikian, Alexander Cendese, Michael Crouch, Neil Shah, Greg Chun, Andrew Eiden, Josh Bloomberg, Graham Halstead, Brian Holden, Robin Eller, Fajer Al-Kaisi, Ryan Jordan McCarthy, Timothy Andrés Pabon

Length: 1 hr and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

There are no happy endings for the Princesses of Chaminade High in this short, twisty tale of teenage murder games by the New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good and Evil series.

The victims are the most popular girls in school, each murdered and arranged in a grim fairy-tale tableau. To find the killer, rookie detective Callum Pederson has gone undercover where the Princes hold court. He’s found enough secrets among the bros to bring them in for questioning - but he could very well get lost in the games the Princes play.

The Princess Game is part of Faraway, a collection of retold fairy tales that take the happily-ever-after in daring new directions. Whether read or listened to in one sitting, prepare to be charmed, moved, enlightened, and frightened all over again.

©2020 Soman Chainani (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Disappointed with the ending

I enjoyed the book until I got to the ending. I felt it was disappointing because I felt it was too unreal and I actually thought it was kind of stupid. I can’t go into why because of spoilers.

Interesting. A hmmm story.

The Narrators were excellent. The plot of the story kept you entertained. Although some of the narration was needed to be eliminated. It did help, but if storyline was written different it would bfc have sounded better. This book was entertaining.

No Knights in this one

I’m a big fan of sci-fi, fantasy, and fairytales. This didn’t work for me. It fails the Bechdel test, and that’s not the worst part. Replace each Prince with a men’s rights internet troll activist, and the story is the same. The lessen of the tale: Women who assert power are murdered. Spoiler: It ends with women still being murdered.

The editing felt choppy. The dialogue was paced awkwardly as a result.

if you're over 17, don't bother

The ending tied together the ridicules, contrived storyline that was apparently written for teenage girls from the 50's to fantasize over. I would hope that today's young women AND young men are not as pathetic as this throwback group of characters.

Clever, but a little stilted

the story held my interest, but I felt there were instances where the situations were very contrived. It's not bad, but it's not great, either.

awkward

The premise could have been okay but it was difficult to follow and felt jaggedy.

Perfect ending

THE PRINCESS GAME by Soman Chainani is also a dark story, and with a terrific full cast narration, it keeps you engaged. It’s in essence a police procedural, and readers progressively get a wider and wider view of the goings-on at Chaminade High and the intricacies and high price of being part of the school’s deadly cliques. The story has solidly mature YA content with a focus on hookups, and it seems every Prince has a hurt pride motive to kill a Princess. Perfect ending.

Who wants be a Princess anyway?

I enjoyed this story too much. Highschool - a scene of death to five (and then six) young girls dubbed Princesses due to the various and hideous ways they are killed. The Princes, aka. the Jocks, of the school are the prime suspects. An aging cop and a new police cadet are on the case with no viable leads, but plenty of suspects except for one problem: they all have alibis. It turns into 'he said, she said' and it really is quite fast paced for even an hour of time. Definitely worth it.

Not Impressed

This is the second book I’ve listened to in this series and I’m once again shocked with how little I like them. For starters, it was very easy to figure out who the killer was long before the story revealed it, and, second, I have no interest in a story emphasizing toxic masculinity. Is Amazon trying to make some sort of social point with these or what? It’s all just coming across as strange and boring to me.

Meh

This one is my least favorite of the group so far. It was hard to get into.