Clean Books for Picky Readers, Part 6

    Wow. It's been a very long time since I've done one of these. Maybe that's a good thing; I've given out a lot of reading recommendations since starting this blog, and it's hard to read that many books in a short time.

    At any rate, I think it's high time I gave you all more books to look up!

1. The Princess of the Midnight Ball trilogy, by Jessica Day George

    Do you like fairy-tale retellings? Well, here's three for you, including retellings of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood. And, better yet, all the themes of books 2 and 3 tie right back in to the events of book 1! Plus, all the characters are realistically affected by their experiences, so the princesses who play the part of protagonist in books 2 and 3 have a reasonable amount of PTSD and emotional trauma from all that they went through in book 1. But I'm not going to give you any more spoilers than that--just know that I thought these books were really well done.

    These books are a little unsettling for younger readers, so I recommend them for everyone 13 and up.

2. The Four Kingdoms multiseries, by Melanie Cellier

    I just discovered these books a short time ago, and I spent most of my Christmas Break reading them. There are three connected serieses (Gah! What's the plural of series?), with a grand total of eighteen books. And they're all fairy-tale retellings.

    Also, as a person with a vendetta against Disney's renditions of The Little Mermaid, I loved the retelling in this one. It was really well done, and I love how the author played around with how the MC's loss of voice could go, rather than how it has been done in the past.

    And while a lot of the characters do start to feel similar after a while (what else can they do, after eighteen books?), there's enough variety that it still never gets boring. Better yet, this series has Christian themes throughout, without having very many preachy bits. (As in... there is a preachy bit of exposition in Book 2, and then that stuff just becomes a background theme.) As a Christian reader, I really appreciate that.

    Actually... rather than looking up this series, just look up the author. She has more serieses than just this one, and from what little I've read of the others, they're really good.

3. The Outlaws of Sherwood, by Robin McKinley

    This is, hands-down, the best Robin Hood retelling I've ever read in my life. With awesome characters, a little bit of romance, plenty of action, and a realistic, bittersweet ending, this book knocks my standards for the Robin Hood story out of the park.

    The language is a bit archaic, though. Nothing too bad, and it's still understandable, but I'd recommend it for slightly older readers just for the sake of comprehension.

4. The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley

    This is another fantastic book. The second book wasn't quite as clean as this one, and a whole lot darker, but this book makes me happy. If you like horses, swords, and magic, this book has all three--you just have to get through the beginning, and that's okay, because the beginning is itself very interesting, and it sets up some delightful twists later on.

    I love this book, and I'm rather frustrated that my online library doesn't have it anymore. (However, I did recently get myself a physical copy, so I suppose it's all right now.)

5. The Hagenheim and Dericott Tale serieses, by Melanie Dickerson

    Today is just a day for fairy-tale retellings, isn't it?

    These are two serieses of highly Christian-themed retellings (even the characters are Christians), set in 15th century Germany and England. They're a lot of fun, super predictable and cheesy, and they all start to feel the same after a while. It's great. Even more than Melanie Cellier's work, these books are the Hallmark stories of fairy tales. (Though I have to admit that I haven't actually read all of these books, because too much romance all at once gets boring after a while.)

6. Just Stab Me Now, by Jill Bearup

    I can finally say this book is out and buyable! Yay!

    Basically, this is a story about an author trying to write a romantasy novel, but her characters won't do what she wants the way she wants them to. Over the course of the book, you get to read both her story and the story she's writing, and it's super meta because she routinely jumps into the story to tell her characters off for misbehaving, and it's amazing. I love this book! By far the best debut novel I've ever read, and this by a person who never meant to be an author in the first place!

    I highly recommend this book! Though I do also recommend watching the YouTube shorts series Jill Bearup did, too, because those are also fantastic and they are why the book exists. (Basically, Jill Bearup made a YouTube short poking fun at a romantasy trope. Her YouTube viewers loved it, so she made a series. When I discovered her, her subscribers had started pestering her to turn the series into a book, and now it exists!)

    Well, there you are. Apparently I'm in a cheesy romance mood at the time of writing this, and I guess that's fitting because it's February. ;)

    On another note, I'll be attending the "Life, The Universe, and Everything" writing symposium next weekend, so once I return from that there will probably be a great many blog posts summarizing what I learned from the various sessions. I'll take good notes, I promise! :)