Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Princess Ben

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 8,563 ratings · 971 reviews

"My gown suited me as well as I could ever hope, though I could not but envy the young ladies who would attract the honest compliments of the night. My bodice did not plunge as dramatically as some, and no man--no man I would ever want to meet, surely--could fit his hands round my waist. What I lacked in beauty I would simply have to earn with charm..."

Benevolence is not

...more

Paperback, 344 pages

Published March 18th 2008 by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Best Fairytales and Retellings

61st out of 919 books — 5,212 voters

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt

The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones

The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce

Hidden Gems: YA-Fantasy Novels

25th out of 816 books — 2,039 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Jul 24, 2009 Cara rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fairytale lovers

Recommended to Cara by: Valerie

Shelves: fantasy, fairy-tales

I have got to say this keep me up at night. Literally. The urge to read the last word was so great I forced my eyes to pry open. At first it was slow going, but that was understandable. We needed the whole background. I had mixed feelings going in because I had already gobbled and enjoyed reading Dairy Queen and The Off Season by the same author. This series has one of the best protagonist I've seen in young adult books, so my expectations were almost unreachable but I was pleased to find that I...more I have got to say this keep me up at night. Literally. The urge to read the last word was so great I forced my eyes to pry open. At first it was slow going, but that was understandable. We needed the whole background. I had mixed feelings going in because I had already gobbled and enjoyed reading Dairy Queen and The Off Season by the same author. This series has one of the best protagonist I've seen in young adult books, so my expectations were almost unreachable but I was pleased to find that I was throughly satisfied. This is an incredibly different style for this author, but when you are gulping the pages down you forget that. Murdock has great talent; that much is for certain.

One point that has to made is that this has the typical fairy tale elements but at the same time it doesn't. Let's talk about what made it so different from the others. First off our heroine is rotund. Not the typical princess protocol. It was refreshing to see, but at times got to be too much for my taste. Don't get me wrong I love food, but you got to draw the line somewhere. I think it was to show how much she indulged herself, so it was reflective of her behavior in general. Anyways Ben (or Benevolence) is a bit whiny and well frankly immature in the beginning, but I for one liked that. Most of the time the princesses are almost already perfect. Which is fine, but can get boring sometimes. At the end we find that she had a lot more to do with her own predicaments than what she thought. Kind of like owning up that you have a lot more to do with what happens in your life than anyone else. That's a fine lesson to learn at any age.

I truly enjoyed the magic in the story. I want to own the mirror in that tower darn it!(You'll see what I mean when you read it) The plot was done well, even though I would have liked more character development in Prince Florian. We didn't get to see as much of him as I would have liked. You could see some things coming from a mile away, but you always need a little predictability in fairy tales. I can't finish without saying that Queen Sophia is the most interesting character in the book by far. Props to the author for being able to show us the many shades of her persona.

So go forth fariytale lovers! Enjoy, savor, and relish in reading the tale of Ben.(less)

like 11 likes · see review

Oct 10, 2011 Miss Clark rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fairytale-fantasy-sci-fi-mythology

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I liked the premise immensely, but was disappointed by how it was handled. I mean, dragons. Magic. Locked in a tower. Arranged marriage to the prince of your country's enemy, same enemy that probably killed your parents. Lots to love, but somehow these elements did not come together as I had hoped they would. I wanted more one on one time for the two protagonists and felt that, honestly, Benevolence was really a little too spoilt. She had next to no self control and even less of a desire to try...more

like 13 likes · see review

Apr 11, 2008 Monica Edinger rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fairytale

Started to write this here and realized it was developed enough to be worth posting on my blog. So here is my post:

I’ve read, loved, studied, and taught fairy tales all my life. Every three years I co-teach a graduate school fairy tale course and, since 1990, I’ve been doing a Cinderella unit with my fourth graders. So I’m always interested in new versions of these old tales as well as original ones. At the same time, because many of these come up short for me, I am a wary reader of them, especi...more Started to write this here and realized it was developed enough to be worth posting on my blog. So here is my post:

I’ve read, loved, studied, and taught fairy tales all my life. Every three years I co-teach a graduate school fairy tale course and, since 1990, I’ve been doing a Cinderella unit with my fourth graders. So I’m always interested in new versions of these old tales as well as original ones. At the same time, because many of these come up short for me, I am a wary reader of them, especially those featuring feisty oppositional heroines who are too often pallid cousins of Gail Carson Levine’s Ella and Patricia Wrede’s Cimorene. So I was both curious and dubious as I started reading Catherine Murdock’s Princess Ben. And here I am, having finished it last night, having enjoyed it sufficiently to want to write about it at length. (I don’t write that many book reviews here and, in fact, started writing this casually over at goodreads and then realized that it might actually be decent enough to post here for more to see.)

So getting to the book itself, what was it that I liked so much? First of all, I was captivated immediately by the mannered writing style and voice. Murdock has really pulled off that old-fashioned first-person epistolary style and voice; it is very nicely done indeed. At first I was very conscious of this as I read (in a good way — I was simply enjoying her sentences and vocabulary) , but once I got into the plot I stopped paying attention; I’m guessing she sustained it all the way through. For the last few years I’ve been listening to a lot of Dickens, Collins, and now Eliot so I’m very conscious of this old-fashioned style and it grates on me when writers try it unsuccessfully. So bravo to Murdock for pulling it off.

The characters are all very complex — no one is totally bad or totally good; a very nice way of deepening and complicating the usual good/bad cast of characters in traditional fairy tales. I began thinking they would be stock versions or variations or opposites of the traditional types and enjoyed the way every single one of them turned out to be more nuanced than I originally thought they were. My main quibble would be with Ben’s parents. They are left as single-dimensional ghosts of her memory and perhaps that is as it should be, given her circumstances, but I did feel that I wanted to know more about them, especially her mother. For a while I did wonder about Ben’s gluttony, thinking Murdock was going for a large-princesses-are-lovable-too. But she went a different and original direction that I found worthwhile (and I’m not usual one for psychological meanings, but this was interesting enough for me to feel okay with it).

The plot is captivating, engaging, and kept me reading and guessing. If I were on an award committee this year I would want to consider harder the climax of the story and whether it is a bit out-of-nowhere. (Won’t say more for fear of spoilage.) But since I’m not, I’ll just leave it as is. It worked just fine for me.

So, all in all, a very elegantly written and satisfying literary fairy tale.

Entry Filed under:
(less)

like 23 likes · see review

Jul 03, 2009 Valerie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, favorites

After reading Dairy Queen and The Off Season by this same author I really had no idea what to expect in this book. The transition to fantasy seemed easy. I still enjoyed this book after the second time I read it. I like Ben and enjoyed seeing her grow from a self-pitying but soft-hearted girl to a determined ruler.

I've always liked fairy-tales and if anything this book has made me like them even more. Ben is a dynamic protagonist. She was not raised as a real princess so she is more relatable. A...more

like 3 likes · see review

Apr 02, 2009 cecilia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: green-covers

I found the heroine extremely childish and intolerable in the first 3 parts, but I suspect Murdock deliberately made her that way. However, I do not think Murdock meant her to be so unlikeable that readers would not be able to stomach her. I did not truly like Ben until the last part when she finally grows up and recognizes the purpose behind the "princess" lessons, her responsibilities as the sole heir to the kingdom. When she got over herself, acted less spoiled, and actually got some spunk. P...more

like 5 likes · see review

Oct 26, 2008 Kristi (The Story Siren) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own

Princess Ben short for Benevolence is orphaned after the assassinations of her uncle, the reining king, and her mother, her father’s body is not found. As the last remaining member of royal blood, Ben is forced to move into the castle and endure her aunt, Queen Sophia. Sophia insists that Ben act like the princess she should and insists that Ben learn to dance, sew, proper penmanship, and control her appetite. She later learns these "lessons" are to make her appealing to a suitor, so that the qu...more

like 2 likes · see review

Jul 29, 2008 Jarrah rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: author-catherinegilbertmurdock, genre-yafiction, dragons, girl-disguised-as-boy, magical-objects, magic-mirrors, orphans, princesses, princes, spells, genre-yafantasy, fairytales, setting-alternateworld

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. YA alternate-world fantasy. Chubby Princess Benevolence had a scrappy, indulged childhood: she was heir to the throne, but she was the daughter of only the king's younger brother, and therefore didn't actually have much to do with the court. When her parents are killed and Ben falls into the custody of her pitiless aunt the queen, she is entirely unequipped to deal with the strict and interminable lessons in courtesy, the tiny portions of ladylike food her aunt allows her, or, when relations wit...more YA alternate-world fantasy. Chubby Princess Benevolence had a scrappy, indulged childhood: she was heir to the throne, but she was the daughter of only the king's younger brother, and therefore didn't actually have much to do with the court. When her parents are killed and Ben falls into the custody of her pitiless aunt the queen, she is entirely unequipped to deal with the strict and interminable lessons in courtesy, the tiny portions of ladylike food her aunt allows her, or, when relations with her aunt reach an impasse, her imprisonment in a bare tower room for everything but meals. But that little stone room has a secret, and soon Ben is learning magic from on an old and dusty book - magic that gets her in worse trouble than she's ever been in, but might also allow her to save her kingdom from the danger besetting it.

For most of the length of this, I thought it was a fun read - not great, but inoffensive and nice, in a not-quite-fairy-tale-themed way. My only real complaint was with the narrative voice: the frame is that the heroine is recounting these events as an old woman, and the voice really did feel like an old woman's. Which is a valid style, but not what you expect from YA, especially given the very contemporary-YA-ish cover.

I finished it with some niggling annoyance at a couple of character choices, but still with the impression that it was a fun, harmless read. But the niggling annoyance has grown, to the point that I'm actually angry at the book at this stage - and I didn't think I'd cared about it enough to be angry, but there.

The general gist of the book's message is that people aren't black-or-white, and that a rather immature sixteen-year-old's idea of wickedness is probably going to be rather overblown. Ben grows up a lot over the book, and realises that she's been doing several people rather an injustice, and making things worse for herself. In particular, she realises that the queen is actually admirable in a lot of ways, and that a good part of why they got on so badly was Ben's own immaturity and stubbornness. Which, all right, as far as it goes, complex characters are a good thing - except that the queen doesn't have any similar revelation, and never suffers or feels badly for her treatment of Ben. She locked up her niece for months and denied her enough food to eat. To turn around and say that this was her niece's fault and they're all going to get on like wildfire now that Ben's grown up some is, actually, incredibly disturbing.

The other character I wanted to strangle was the love interest, a prince from the warlike kingdom over the other side of the mountains. He and Ben fail to get on from their first meeting, and continue failing to get on through all their subsequent meetings. The author seems to be working with the idea that enmity-turns-to-love is more interesting than admiration-turns-to-love, but the thing is that there has to be a reason for the enmity to turn to love. Prince Florian is a war-mongering, arrogant, petty boy, who treats the heroine appallingly when he knows who she is, and even more appallingly when he thinks, as he does for a good part of the book, that she's a fat little peasant boy his soldiers have taken prisoner and chained in the kitchen tent. He also tries to invade her kingdom, and makes free comment to the fat-little-peasant-boy about how doltish and repulsive Princess Benevolence was. We as readers are let in on how he's really misunderstood and a true prince when the two of them have a heart-to-heart one evening in which Florian makes some atrociously sappy and entirely out-of-character revelations about his ideals for true love, which do nothing to establish his decency as a human being, only his rather tenuous grip on reality. When Ben confronts him later about the gap between his ideals and his plan to marry somebody he barely knows and dislikes, he has her thrown into jail with a death threat hanging over her head, for her disrespect.

Somehow she gets over all this when she thinks he's dying, and they have a rather rapturous kiss. This doesn't even need the Stockholm Syndrome thing to be a terrible romance, but I might be OK with it if there was even some acknowledgment that he was desperately unlikeable but she liked him anyway. Instead we just have Ben feeling terrible and apologising about having accidentally done something to humiliate him once, without even mentioning that maybe she's still ahead in the humiliation stakes, as far as their personal interaction goes. Just. Angry reader fists, all right?(less)

like 8 likes · see review

May 05, 2008 Elysse rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I wish I could give half stars because this book deserves four and a half. As the inside jacket says, this isn't your ordinary fairy tale. Princess Ben (short for Benevolence), is a whiny, overweight, spirited girl who recently mourns the loss of her parents. Her country is threatened by a neighboring kingdom, who claim no part in the murdering of the king and Ben's parents. Orphaned, Ben is put under her strict aunt's wings, Queen Sophie. Completely miserable, locked up and starved until she ca...more

like 7 likes · see review

Sep 25, 2011 Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, historical-fiction, strong-female-lead, ya-teen, fairytales-retold, for-the-girls

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. First let me say that I'm not a fan of these realistic book covers, which seem to be all the rage recently. I much prefer the more artistic covers that allow me to imagine what the main character etc. look like. I'm also usually a little skeptical of fairy tale retellings because it seems that they can so easily go awry.

This one, however, did not. Yay! Murdock takes all the most familiar parts of the princess fairytales (the tower, the sleep-enchanted pri...more

like 5 likes · see review

Mar 02, 2009 Christine rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this book. Until the end, but I'll get to that later. I love novelizations of fairy tales, and this was a good one with a bit of a twist. It was part Sleeping Beauty, part Cinderella, with some Jack and the Bean Stalk thrown in for fun. I liked the old fashioned verbage and was glad I was reading on my Kindle which made looking up words a breeze (there were quite a few).
Princess Ben starts out a bit spoiled, but I like how her character develops through the story, and I think the...more

like 3 likes · see review

Sep 12, 2012 Wickedshizuku rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Young women, Feminists, Adventure lovers, Gail Carson Levine fans, Tamora Pierce fans

Recommended to Wickedshizuku by: Fort Stewart Librarian

Shelves: 2009, favorites, reviewed

There was one quote that made this one on my favorites shelf, because lo and behold I look up and see this on the news after reading it.

GIFSoup

“With that, I hurled the slipper at him, not caring if I caused his decapitation. (I did not.) Marshaling what little dignity I yet possessed, I stomped down the corridor - challenging indeed with one shoe - and around the corner. I lay awake for hours. The prince had no right, not one, to indict me so, and if I had held the slightest hope of the book's...more

like 1 like · see review

Sep 22, 2008 Kathy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ft-or-princess

I thought this book was rather charming and unique. I enjoyed Ben’s character, and reading about her many adventures. I thought she was easy to relate to because she wasn’t perfect, and things didn’t always turn out the way she wanted. It was fun to follow her progress throughout the book, as she turns from a somewhat spoiled girl to a Queen. I liked the concept of Prince Florian, but thought his character was underdeveloped. He didn’t really appear until about 200 pages and even then they barel...more

like 4 likes · see review

Jul 17, 2008 Margaret rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: gals seeking adventure and needed a little growing up

Recommended to Margaret by: Jenny B. Jones

Shelves: pines, uncle-remus-library-system, historical, sc-fi-fantasy, dragons, suspense-thriller, young-adult, own, teen-princess-stories, ages-13-and-up, teen-fiction

First off, I must share my favorite line(s) from this book that sent me into fits of giggles:

With that, I hurled the slipper at him, not caring if I caused his decapitation. (I did not.) Marshaling what little dignity I yet possessed, I stomped down the corridor -- challenging indeed with one shoe -- and around the corner. I lay awake for hours. The prince had no right, not one, to indict me so, and if I had held the slightest hope of the book's assistance, I would have climbed at once to my w...more

like 1 like · see review

Jun 02, 2008 Brooke Shirts rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2008

I remember something Diana Wynne Jones wrote that went something along the lines of this:

"In Fantasyland, a princess is either a

1. Wimp, or
2. Rebellious spunky swordswoman with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her tip-tilted nose."

Needless to say, the rebellious-princess character has become something of a cliché. So it's quite refreshing when an author takes this setup (of an "ordinary princess" rejecting the frou-frou court, then escaping and having grand adventures) and can make...more

like 5 likes · see review

Apr 26, 2008 Roxanne Hsu Feldman rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 6-8grade, childrensbooks, youngadult, 2008

This book both feels that it's for older readers -- some of the language is purposefully archaic or less familiar -- and very young -- the emotional twists and turns and the adversaries that Ben has to face are not earth-shattering, to say the least. It's a weird combination of very simple Tamora Pierce and Pride and Prejudice. The middle section of the story is fun and the last part is quite exciting but the set-up (80 odd pages of Part I) is a bit long and too leisure a pace, I feel. Definite...more

like 3 likes · see review

Apr 01, 2011 Liz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: library

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like 1 like · see review

Amy Agreed. And I read it a long time ago, but my memory is that the messages about body were also disturbing -- like, you should be proud of your body an...more
Apr 02, 2011 10:43am

Liz There were definitely a lot of problematic issues with her messages about bodies and food as well. I didn't get your particular reading from the book,...more
Apr 03, 2011 08:35pm

Amy I remembered the problematic while forgetting the details, plainly. What you describe sounds familiar & about right. :)
Apr 05, 2011 07:45pm

Jan 10, 2009 Christine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Enjoyable read although not on my top favorites list. Good princess/fairy tale type story although a bit slow in the beginning. Great style of writing though, funny and sarcastic viewpoint of the main character.

like 1 like · see review

Feb 22, 2009 Debbie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya, fantasy

Meh. Pretty standard medieval world fairy-tale-ish fantasy. Really had difficulty liking "Ben" or believing in the predictable relationship. Also found prissy, pseudo-formal voice really irritating.

like 3 likes · see review

Sep 24, 2008 Rebecca rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fairy-tales, bookclubpicks, favorites, fun, young-adult-fiction

Wonderful! She's a princess, true, but she's also overweight, and more completely unprepared for her role than any princess I've come across. (You know, they all claim to be unfit to rule, but this one Really Is! I was actually hoping she didn't get the throne!) The most clever, unusual and unexpected mixing of fairy tales I've seen. I haven't finished a book this fast in a long time! And have not laughed and cried like I did for this one in many years. It was at least as good as The Goose Girl...more

like 1 like · see review

Jan 09, 2012 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: dragons, fantasy, magic, princess, royalty, young, adult

Princess Ben is not your typical princess. First of all, her name isn’t pretty and feminine – it’s Ben, short for Benevolence. Secondly, she is chubby and graceless. And her life is far from perfect, especially after her parents and her uncle, the king, die on the same day. It is assumed that they were killed by the neighboring Drachensbetts, long the enemy of Ben’s people. Ben goes to live with her widowed aunt, Sophia, who is now serving as the Queen until Ben is old enough to assume the thron...more

like · see review

Mar 13, 2009 Debbie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-scifi

I really like Catherine Gilbert Murdock's first two books (Dairy Queen and The Off Season - read them!), so I was looking forward to reading her first fantasy novel.

Ben is an only child, somewhat spoiled by her doting parents. When her mother is killed and her father goes missing, in what seems to be an attack by the rulers of the surrounding country, she suddenly finds herself the heir to the throne and under the tutelage of the cold Queen Sophia, her aunt. Ben is utterly uninterested in becomi...more

like · see review

Dec 28, 2008 Colleen rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: YA girls

Recommended to Colleen by: Amazon.com matched it to preferences

Last night I started and finished Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock. This was definitely a different twist on a few old stories. Princess Ben is the niece of the king, who has no other heirs. When the King, his brother (Ben's father) and Ben's mother are killed while on a pilgrimage, Ben is taken over as Queen Sofia's pet project.

The story is told as an autobiography from a mature, adult-Ben perspective. Because of this, the narration voice is able to provide some analysis of Ben's acti...more Last night I started and finished Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock. This was definitely a different twist on a few old stories. Princess Ben is the niece of the king, who has no other heirs. When the King, his brother (Ben's father) and Ben's mother are killed while on a pilgrimage, Ben is taken over as Queen Sofia's pet project.

The story is told as an autobiography from a mature, adult-Ben perspective. Because of this, the narration voice is able to provide some analysis of Ben's actions and motives which provides the reader with appropriate depth - or shallowness - of Ben's actions. This is critical to making the story anything interesting or providing any tension, because the child-Ben is a shallow, food-obsessed, graceless girl who delights in succeeding at any resistance to Queen Sofia's attempts to polish her into a princess.

In her own description of herself, Princess Ben is a fat pig. In today's parlance, one might say that she has an "eating disorder" due to Queen Sofia's heartlessness, but the narrator makes it plain that Ben's overeating habits (problems) pre-date her parents' deaths. They also provide some of the redemption later on in the book, when Ben's attentions turn to a completely different set of obsessions.

You see, in the depths of her (redeemably non-stereotypical) exile in her Queen Aunt's castle tower, Ben discovers that she has magical powers. She discovers the secret passageways around the castle, and finds a tower with a spellbook in it that begins to teach her how to use her powers. In authorial brilliance, Murdock does not explain the powers of the tower and its contents. Like children (and like Ben) we the readers are forced to accept that the tower's contents simply are and do what they please.

The love/hate relationship with the next kingdom over the mountain gets old quickly. The plot devices with which Murdock moves Ben to the locations needed for interaction with the "enemy" are rather aged, though her particular flourishes on them are amusing and speedy. I'm too jaded to enjoy the "invading each other's dreams" plot filler at this point, so I must admit that I barely skimmed over the brief dream interludes.

The various foreign personalities are unfortunately limited by page size, so remain far flatter than one might prefer as an adult reader. Murdock does provide a strong nod towards the feminist fantasy crowd with a strong-but-brief rant by Princess Ben regarding how much work becoming an accomplished princess can be.

I will be interested to hear what my niece thinks of this book when I send it to her.(less)

like 1 like · see review

Nov 22, 2008 Aaron rated it 5 of 5 stars

This modern fairy tale is a thoroughly good time! Princess Benevolence has grown up in the kingdom of Montagne, a small principality that is set in the shelter of a small valley abutting a large mountain that plays a major role in the lore of the kingdom Drachensbett, a larger neighboring one that has threatened it's sovereignty over the centuries.

Ben is the daughter of the of the king's brother. She was given every amenity and is a bit spoiled. She has a bit of spunk and a sarcastic tongue tha...more This modern fairy tale is a thoroughly good time! Princess Benevolence has grown up in the kingdom of Montagne, a small principality that is set in the shelter of a small valley abutting a large mountain that plays a major role in the lore of the kingdom Drachensbett, a larger neighboring one that has threatened it's sovereignty over the centuries.

Ben is the daughter of the of the king's brother. She was given every amenity and is a bit spoiled. She has a bit of spunk and a sarcastic tongue that gets her in trouble but keeps the reader laughing.

As with most fairy tales, our hero must overcome a terrible tragedy, and Ben's trouble is tied to the loss of her uncle and mother who turn up dead after a trip up the mountain to visit the tomb of her grandfather, who died heroically fighting the forces of Drachensbett. Her father has turned up missing.

Besides losing her loved ones, Ben is forced into the rule of being the future leader of her country. Queen Sophia, her aunt and new regent, has taken on the responsibility of training Ben for the future. She comes across as being quite harsh as Ben is forced to learn the skills and behavior that would serve any queen well. Life is by no means easy for Ben, but some of the harshness comes across because of her own insolence.

Before long, Ben finds herself imprisoned in a room in a high tower that would do Rapunzel proud. As she frantically seeks out an escape, she comes across a secret passage that leads her to a small magical laboratory that helps her connect with her family's magical past. She slowly uses a book in the lab to learn to control the four elements.

While she does this, she learns that the Regent Sophia is working on bringing about suitors for Ben in order to avoid an invasion by Drachensbett, which includes the crown prince of that kingdom. This seems to be a complete nightmare since many, including Ben, believe this kingdom played a role in the recent royal deaths.

At the conclusion of a ball designed to introduce Ben to the various suitors, Ben is able to flee the castle and end up in dire straights. Her adventures will help her realize what it takes to be both an adult and a good leader.

The story is presented by Ben, who is looking back on the adventures from the future. Her humorous tone and cozy narrative really makes the reader feel for her, even at the beginning when she is a bit spoiled. I really loved this story. It reminded me a lot of Shrek and Ella Enchanted. It is fun!(less)

like · see review

Nov 24, 2012 Nancy Anderson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 13-24

Princess Benevolence (Ben) grew up privileged in the Kingdom of Montagne. Her uncle is King and her father the Prince. She however would much rather forget the dresses and balls and explore outside. Shortly after her 15th birthday, she has a cold and can’t visit her grandfather’s grave with the rest of the family. Somehow the King and her mother were murdered on this excursion and her father leaves to seek revenge. With her father missing and Ben too young to rule yet, her strict aunt, Queen So...more

like · see review

Oct 22, 2012 Nichelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1-12

Inside Out and Back Again is a story about Ha, a girl who has to leave behind everything she knows and loves in South Vietnam to become a refugee in the United States and escape from the communists who have taken over her old home. Written in the form of both a diary and a collection of poems, readers learn about the hardships faced by those who are forced to leave their homes and relocate to a new country, learn a new language, and face the reactions of others to their differences. Ha eventuall...more

like · see review

Jul 09, 2012 Dawn Vanniman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fifteen year old Princess Benevolent (or Ben, as everyone calls her), lives with her parents near the castle. Her uncle is the King and her dad the Prince. She's been allowed to be very free and pretty do as she pleases. As for those willowy princesses with the tiny waists? Ben isn't one of them - she's a larger sized girl.

The King, along with Ben's parents, make the yearly trek to Ben's grandfather's tomb and that's where the trouble begins. The King and Ben's mother are killed and her father d...more

like · see review

Jun 20, 2012 Koalathebear rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

I've read "The Off Season" by the author before and it was interesting to contrast her contemporary novel with her 'fairy tale' novel. Princess Ben is a very readable novel - probably not as fantastic as the reviews on amazon.com made me believe, but definitely entertaining. Princess 'Ben' (short for Benevolence) is not your average princess. You expect the princess in such novels to go through a miraculous transformation, morphing from ungainly ugly duckling into a graceful and beautiful swan b...more

like · see review

Mar 24, 2012 Tamara Humphres rated it 5 of 5 stars

Clever young adult read. I enjoyed it. This is the story of a transformation of Princess Benevolence from a backward commoner to the graceful princess that her country needs as a leader. Mystery, magic, giants, dragons, and battle are all important parts of this transformation.

Author Ursula K. LeGuin says that fantasy is not real but it is true. I believe that Princess Ben is a great example of this statement. I think that a reader can relate to the experiences of the main character. And this ma...more

like · see review

Feb 27, 2012 Homewood Public Library rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

Princess Benevolence of Montagne, aka "Ben," is spoiled and childish for her fifteen years. Still pampered by her parents, she reads only fairy stories, plays with dolls and makes mudpies. She has little to no self-control, is stubborn and wilfull, and is unable to focus on any task she is given. Then her world is destroyed. Her parents, her uncle and a royal guard went to visit her grandfather's tomb one morning. The bodies of her mother and uncle were brought back on carts. Her father and the...more

like · see review

Feb 06, 2012 Rina rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-fairytale, romance

The full title is Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts. As the subtitle suggests this book is written from the perspective of Princess Ben whose goal in writing the book is to “provide the most accurate chronology” of her life and to correct “the erroneous legends and embroidered falsehoods that to this day expand, heady as yeast, across the land.” And thus it begins.

Catherine Gilbert...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Story Game	139	29	Feb 21, 2013 08:22am

combine
Other Editions (12)

More editions...

Genres

Fantasy

554 users

Young Adult

272 users

Fantasy > Fairy Tales

85 users

Romance

73 users

Young Adult > Teen

58 users

Fantasy > Magic

57 users

Adventure

41 users

Fantasy > Dragons

36 users

Young Adult > Young Adult Fantasy

34 users

Fairy Tales > Princesses

28 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Catherine Gilbert Murdock

I grew up in small-town Connecticut, on a tiny farm with honeybees, two adventurous goats, and a mess of Christmas trees. My sister claims we didn’t have a television, but we did, sometimes – only it was ancient, received exactly two channels, and had to be turned off after 45 minutes to cool down or else the screen would go all fuzzy. Watching (or rather, “watching”) Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds...more I grew up in small-town Connecticut, on a tiny farm with honeybees, two adventurous goats, and a mess of Christmas trees. My sister claims we didn’t have a television, but we did, sometimes – only it was ancient, received exactly two channels, and had to be turned off after 45 minutes to cool down or else the screen would go all fuzzy. Watching (or rather, “watching”) Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds was quite the experience, because it’s hard to tell a flock of vicious crows from a field of very active static; this might be why I still can’t stand horror movies, to this day.

My sister Liz, who is now a Very Famous Writer with a large stack of books, was my primary companion, even though she was extremely cautious – she wouldn’t even try to jump off the garage roof, which involved crouching right at the edge for ten minutes working up your nerve, and then checking each time you landed to see if you’d broken anything – and she learned early on that losing at games was easier in the long run than putting up with me losing. Now, of course, she travels all over the world collecting stories and diseases, while I stay at home scowling over paint chips, and losing on purpose to my kids. So the cycle continues. (Read an New York Times article by Catherine and Liz.)

People sometimes ask if I played football in high school: no. I ran cross country and track, badly, but I have absolutely no skill whatsoever with ball or team sports. Plus my high school didn’t even have a football team. Instead, I was part of the art clique – taking extra art classes, spending my study halls and lunch periods working on my latest still life. (Please tell me this was not a unique experience.) I didn’t do much writing – my sister was the anointed writer – but I read my little eyeballs out. I was the queen of our library’s YA section.

In college I studied architectural history. The formal name was “Growth and Structure of Cities Program,” but for me, it was all about buildings. I’ve always been fascinated with the built environment – how spaces fit together, how streets work, how they read. And curiously (Warning: Life Lesson approaching), it’s paid off in the oddest ways. For example, several of us in our neighborhood recently got quite upset about a enormous building going in across the street, and while everyone agreed that they didn’t like the way it looked, I was the one who stood up at public meetings and used words like entablature and cornice line and fenestration – all this architectural jargon I’d learned back at Bryn Mawr – and sounded like I knew what I was talking about. And because of that, the building ended up getting redesigned, and – in my humble opinion – now will look much more attractive and appropriate, which is nice because I’ll be looking at it for the rest of my life. So don’t be afraid to study what you love, because you do not know now, and you may not know for twenty years, how amazingly it will pay off. But it will.

Dairy Queen was my first stab at creative writing since high school, not counting several years as a struggling screenwriter (which followed several years as a struggling scholar). I unabashedly recommend screenwriting for mastering the art of storytelling; just don’t pin any hopes on seeing your work on the big screen. But you’ll learn so much in the process that this won’t matter. I also recommend, you know, living. I've been passionate about food pretty much my whole life – first eating it, now preparing and then eating it. And so it plays a pretty big role in my writing, and adds so much flavor . . . not literally, of course, but the more you can add that's true, whether it's emotion or geography or gardening (that’s me in the picture above), then the stronger that story is. (less)

More about Catherine Gilbert Murdock...

Books by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Domesticating Drink: Women, Men, and Alcohol in America, 1870-1940

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Princess Ben

2 trivia questions
3 quizzes

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from Princess Ben

“Every fairy tale, it seems, concludes with the bland phrase "happily ever after." Yet every couple I have ever known would agree that nothing about marriage is forever happy. There are moments of bliss, to be sure, and lengthy spans of satisfied companionship. Yet these come at no small effort, and the girl who reads such fiction dreaming her troubles will end ere she departs the altar is well advised to seek at once a rational women to set her straight.” — 76 people liked it

“With that, I hurled the slipper at him, not caring if I caused his decapitation. (I did not.) Marshaling what little dignity I yet possessed, I stomped down the corridor - challenging indeed with one shoe - and around the corner. I lay awake for hours. The prince had no right, not one, to indict me so, and if I had held the slightest hope of the book's assistance, I would have climbed at once to my wizard room for a spell with which to punish him. Death, perhaps, or humiliation. A croaking frog would be nice, particularly a frog that retained Florian's dark eyes. I should keep it in a box and poke it occasionally with a stick; that would be satisfying indeed.” — 53 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Princess Ben
avg rating	preview: Princess Ben Goodreads rating: 3.69 (8563 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2153427.Princess_Ben?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349060867l/2153427.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2153427.Princess_Ben?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock[/url]

Princess Ben

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website