Jennifer A. Nielsen

In the country of Carthya, a devious nobleman engages four orphans in a brutal competition to be selected to impersonate the king's long-missing son in an effort to avoid a civil war.

The false prince

aster

This is so good!!! Exactly the book that i needed right now

I am intrigued and captivated whenever I read this book and it is easy to finish in a day. I love the characters in this book, they are so well written.

Liz Hunsaker

Teodora Nagy

4.5/5⭐
The main character Sage gave me strong Kaz Brekker vibes, and man do I live for that
The only thing that withdrew me from giving this book a 5/5⭐ review is the fact that I predicted most of the plot twists from the beginning.
ANYWAY
GO READ THIS BOOK NOW, IT IS AMAZING
Also the audiobook is really good so WHAT MORE CAN YOU ASK FOR!?

Rachel Kanyid

This was such a fun read!

I love the plot of a young orphan being groomed to pretend to be king! 

I won't say that this is an original idea, by a long shot, but I greatly enjoyed the story telling, writing style, and characters in this book!

And those big plot twists at the end? Yeah, I saw those coming a mile away, but that's okay. :)

emily

The False Prince

Nina

Kirsten Simkiss

** spoiler alert **
           This book was a pretty fantastic read. I figured out what the plot twist might be half way through the story, but it was easy to rip through and enjoy. It’s definitely a great YA read. I think this deserves 4.5 stars, but for the purposes of Goodreads, I’ve given it 5. I probably would have given it the full five if there were more diverse roles within the story and if the first half hadn’t quite been as repetitive as it was.

The first half of the story introduces Sage, who gets into trouble at every opportunity possible, gets punished, then sneaks back into Conner’s good graces - on repeat. It isn’t until Sage does a coin trick that he is finally guaranteed the role of the false prince. After reading it a few times already, it gets a little tedious.

However, I never felt like I wanted to put the book down at any point. I wanted to keep reading until the story was finished. Even now, I want to read the next book in the series to see how it all turns out.

Hopefully the next book will have a few more ladies. Seriously, this book was overwhelmingly full of male characters. While it made sense to some extent, the male egos got a little same-y after a while.

I would definitely recommend this to others. I had a fantastic time reading it.

One of the best books ever. Sage is so compelling and the best unreliable narrator! A good re-read to get out of my reading slump!

Sydney Burns

If you love the danger and sword-fighting of MERLIN, you'll like this! In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king's long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner's motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword's point - he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. As Sage's journey continues, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally a truth is revealed that proves more dangerous than all of the lies put together.

Ashley Wendt

I thoroughly enjoyed that and will probably start reading book 2 soon! I did guess many of the plot twist along the way, maybe because it’s Middle Grade maybe because I’ve read MWT’s The Thief and felt some similar arcs, but it was still such an engaging and fun read!

Jolyn

5/5
Great story, loved Sage’s characterisation.

I actually saw the plot twist just by reading the blurb, but the author was extremely good at concealing the whole plot twist until the moment it happened. I actually doubted that my theory would even come to fruition at some points. Seems like my intuition was right from the beginning!

Imo, the fourth boy should have stayed a little longer as he more or less was only a character so that the blurb could say there were 4 boys competing.

jess

continuing with my holy shit i love middle grade fantasy attitude, we have the false prince by jennifer nielsen, which i was not expecting to be that good. it’s a medieval fantasy without fantastical elements, which i seem to enjoy than fantasy with fantastical elements (see: a song of ice and fire and ranger’s apprentice) and well, basically it’s has to do with kings and princes and political deceit. 

in short, it’s my kind of book. and once i started reading - whoa. okay, sage is awesome sage is awesome sage is really bloody awesome. his voice is just so loud and so there that you never forget it’s him narrating. he is snarky as hell. like, comparing it to percy jackson, they’re both first person smartasses but percy’s snarkier inside his head while sage is very snarky outside his head. and one of the reasons why i liked it is because i enjoy percy jackson’s voice as well and they are both very similar. 

sage disrespects authority whenever he can. he acts like an entitled brat sometimes, and sometimes he acts like he can do whatever. and i like that he recognizes his faults and knows what they are and never tries to change them. he knows he’s a fool and this is said several times during the book. he knows he can’t hold his tongue and he knows that he’s a jerk, and he knows that he’s cowardly sometimes and doesn’t try to change it. 

he’s a very endearing character, really, and you can’t help but cheer for him despite the fact that he has so many faults. he also has so many good sides. he’s compassionate, he’s smart, and he’s good at keeping secrets. sage’s character is just so strong and that’s one of the things that makes this book shine. 

there is a plot twist near the end of the book, too, that made me shit bricks. i screamed a lot and i was in the car with my parents, so. that plot twist made me so angry (in a good way in case this is misunderstood i don’t even know why i use angry when i don’t mean i’m actually angry) and i’ve heard it said that it was easily foreseeable. well, i did not foresee it, and i was so mad that that was concealed. (i guess i mean passionately emotioned? i don’t know!)

the plot did seem a bit slow until about halfway through the book, but it wasn’t too noticeable because of sage’s narration. this book was really strong when it came to the writing and plot and wow, this book was just really strong the whole way through in a lot of things and i was never, not once, bored. 

one of the things that i kind of wished happened was that the girls got more action, like imogen could have had some great chances there and yes she did get some, but not enough. but hey, next book, and the boys were likable enough. 

i give this a 9/10 and recommend it for fans of the ranger’s apprentice series, medieval fantasy, or snarky protagonists because seriously, snarky protagonists

Mary Horton

WELL, THAT WAS A WILD RIDE.

Honestly, I was kind of skeptical before I started reading it. For some reason, it just didn't sound all that interesting? But gosh, I was totally wrong.

THIS. BOOK. WAS. AWESOME.

It's full of sass, fun characters, sass, plot twists, and did I mention sass? THE SASS LEVELS WERE INSANELY HIGH, AND I LOVED IT.

I thought I would guess the plot twists, but they actually surprised me when they happened. Which is good because I had heard from some people that they guessed them, and I didn't want them to be super predictable.

All in all, I REALLY liked this book! I got super addicted and read like 200 pages tonight so that should say something. XD

Allison Garrett

This may be the book that surprised me the most this year. I really did not expect to like this book half as much as I did, but it was a quick thrilling read that kept me engrossed the whole time. I am highly recommending this book to anyone for a light fun read! 

The Good 
•	Characters- I loved Sage. He was smart, witty, and always kept the reader (and other characters) on their toes. 
•	Plot- I did not see that twist coming. At all. I was screaming! 
•	Pace- Kept a quick pace that was easy to follow and kept me into the book

The Bad 
•	Not much! 


I know this was a short review, but I’m really excited to go read the next book which just goes to show how great it was!

Jenna T.

This was such a fun little story! I think I'm gonna hide most of this review cause it's difficult to discuss the book without revealing the plot twist at the end, and I don't think I'm even gonna try. So remember, if you click this, you were warned...
(view spoiler)[
  

  I really loved the plot twist that Sage was Jaron all along. I didn't honestly think that the novel was going to take that turn until a decent way in; at the start, I thought it was actually going to be about Sage having to navigate court politics while pretending to be Jaron. Around the 30% point I realized where the novel was really going, and I got excited trying to piece the rest together from there. But there were some parts that felt too questionable even farther along. Sometimes it was too obvious that Sage wasn't telling the whole truth, such as with the reading thing and the horseback riding, and at those points I was like "well then the obvious answer is that he must be Jaron." But then at other points it felt like the story didn't reveal enough for Sage's character to be plausible or understandable.

  
That's not to say that I thought the novel was poorly done or anything. Striking the right balance with an identity reveal without giving away too much too early OR too late, making a character understandable and enjoyable without being obvious about the reveal, making everything make sense both in the moment and in hindsight... These are impossibly difficult things to do right, and I think the author did basically the best job she could have. I was kept guessing right up until the moment of the reveal, and I wasn't left wondering about any inconsistencies or plot holes for too long.

  
I will say that I think the protagonist secret identity reveal thing was done better by Megan Whalen Turner in The Thief, RIP if you haven't read that yet and just got spoiler'd haha... Not to mention, Turner did it like 15 years earlier than Nielsen did. But I guess there's only so many ways to do a story like this right. And let's be honest, Turner's novels are all a masterclass in the art of the plot twist, so it's probably unfair to compare anyone to her.

  
Though I will say that at first, I thought the reveal of Sage being Jaron was done at the wrong time, but now, looking back, I think it was actually not a bad place to do it. I was hoping she would save the reveal for the climax of the book, when I started to suspect that that's where the story was going, and I felt like the wind was sort of let out of my sails when she did it long before the climax instead. But thinking back on it, she probably could have gotten away with doing the reveal even earlier than she did; it added another layer of suspense to the ending act of the story, and it gave us a chance to understand Sage/Jaron a little bit better before the story had a chance to end entirely. Doing it at the actual climax of the story might have given the reader too much new information to handle all at once, and it might have been overkill at that point.

 (hide spoiler)]
Anyhow! Overall this was a delightful, quick read with a fun cast and an engaging plot, if not the most original out there. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

Emi Gilmore 

Much to my surprise, I absolutely LOVED this book. Review to come.

Amy Grieve

When you fall in love with a book it's never just a passing flirtation, it's an eternal feeling that will never go away. Maybe that was a bit deep but I'm just trying to say that this book is now one of those stories that, in your heart, you treasure and read over and over again.

Cover Thoughts:
I love the contrast between the blue background and the gold lettering. It' simple yet bold and the crown is a great and classy.

The Review: 
Three boys: Sage, Tobias and Roden are just orphans according to anyone on the street, but to the nobleman Conner one of these three boys is the key to the entire future of Carthya. With the royal's dead and the only heir to Carthya's throne presumed dead everyone is eyeing the title.

Conner's plan is to convince the court and country that one of the boys is in fact the missing Prince Jaron and he has two weeks to do so. The boys will be taught how to act, what to say and how to fight in order to become a passable prince. It's every boy for himself because once the winner is chosen there will be no second or third place just dead.

Still the questions are infinite. Why is Conner so desperate to succeed in his plan? What really happened to Prince Jaron that day? And most importantly who will be chosen as 'The False Prince'?

Sage is pretty much the entire heart of this book. His tone is light-hearted throughout the story even though he knows the danger he is in if he doesn't win the crown and the danger he will be in if he assumes the throne. His antics had be grinning because he just didn't care what they equalled. He went along with the flow and if he didn't like something he changed it. He was resourceful, he could make the hard decisons when it mattered and was always willing help others, but at the same time he was also willing to be selfish. It's not a quality that particularly suits many characters personality's but with him it fit like a glove. He was the perfect balance. Without Sage's voice this book wouldn't be the same. 

Another character that I really enjoyed reading about was Mott. Mott is one of Conner's men who takes a certain liking to Sage as a candidate. At first I thought that Mott and Cregan were two peas in a pod but gladly I was proven wrong. A big reason why I loved Mott was because it wasn't an instant connection, instead I had to keep reading to form a connection. As I did so I fell for him as a person. He is kind, hopeful and quiet but is willing to go out of his way for someone he cares about.

The other two boys, Tobias and Roden, were tough cookies to figure out. Tobias was book-smart and fairly well-educated and it was only bad luck that led him to be an orphan and Roden wasn't the brightest tool in the box but was stronger.

Then comes Conner. He was the hardest to figure out because all of his intentions seemed pure yet there was always that undercurrent of doubt that he left me with. I can't really say any more about Conner without revealing the story.

The one thing that every character had in common was that in each chapter they became a bit more real. New sides of them or emotions would be shown in each chapter to make them more three-dimensional. It takes the reader on a journey in which they can not just get others opinions on the character but make their own ideas and assumptions as they go along. It felt like an interactive read. 

Easy-to-read with a writing style that I have never encountered before but want more of, I would recommend this story to anyone as a worthwhile read even if you don't read middle-grade novels it's well-worth the venture. Bring on book 2.

Maria

да что такое под конец года, что ни возьму, то скучища
DNF @30%

Cindy Lee

More of my reviews at Secrets of Lost Words.

Yay!! MG books! I love kid books.. okay so maybe I don't love every single MG book like I do for YA books but I still love this genre to pieces :)

My favorite character in this book is Sage. He's the main character. I love the way he thinks and doesn't let other people boss him around. He's also a very strong character; he doesn't back down even in the worst times. I just love Sage. He's obviously in a bad position against Conner and the other boys but still does his best to stay one step ahead of everyone.

I wasn't all that worried about not having the romance part of books. Romance is a must in the YA world but I do really enjoy books without all the lovey-dovey stuff in it. I had no problem with the no romance thing. If you do love romance, don't worry about it. Still give this a try, because the action will surely keep you busy.

"An extraordinary adventure filled with danger and action, lies and deadly truths that will have readers clinging to the edge of their seats." Yep, that basically covered it. AMEN, PEOPLE.. Definitely read this!!!

Nikki K

Audiobook review

Interesting enough but predictable at times

Alice

Ilse

I unexpectedly found a true gem in this story! When I started it, I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I absolutely loved the story. Sage is a gem of a main character, and Imogen a very sweet supporting character. The story kept me on my toes and rooting for him right to the very end. If you’re looking for a fast-paced story about orphans competing to take up the throne then this is the one for you!

Elisabeth 

Ahhhhh didndjdkwoxnfdidnejdjdndkxd, the rereading of this book brought me so many feelings djsnskdnss. 
________________

I never thought I’ve missed this series that much, until I read it again. I had the feeling I always have when I’m returning home after a rlly, rlly long trip. Words can’t express how much I love this series. 

 So why? Why do I love it so much? 

Maybe one of the biggest reasons is the main character- Sage. (A boy my age whom I could die for). He’s just...okay, idk why but when I love or I’m rlly addicted to smth, I can’t talk about it properly, I just end up talking gibberish. But he’s sassy, funny, clever and amazing. And naughty. A lot of naughty. And stupid of course, but only a little. 

 “In a crowd of a thousand boys claiming to be the prince, there would be only one with the same look of trouble in his eyes.”

So yeah, that’s basically him. Oh and this one too:

 “Hail His Majesty, the scourge of my life, I fear the devils no longer, because I have the worst of them right here in my home!”

Other things I liked:

The plot. It was awesome. Idk what else to say, it was just perfect. 

The plot twists. Rereading it wasn’t the same because of all the surprises and plot twists but I remember when I first read it, I had moments where I was standing there with an open mouth, looking like an idiot. 

The humor. It looks like Jennifer Nielsen has an amazing sense of humor, because the book was full of funny stuff, which I ADORE. It was midnight once and I was struggling so hard not to burst out into laughing and wake up the whole town. 

The characters. I already said how much I loved the main character but I have to say also that each of the characters was so unique and amazing and with the next books u can’t help it but addict on most of them like they’re candies. (Ik I make terrible comparisons) 

So yeah, that’s it, still too short to express how much I loved this book, but as I said, some things are too good to be expressed in words.

The false prince

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