Rejected Princesses Tales of History's Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics

4 Stars Rejected Princesses is a collection of biographical snippets of strong women who have been largely overlooked by history. As soon as I read the description, I knew I had to read this book. I love learning about lesser-known parts of history. Combine that with badass women and you’ve got my money. And while I was familiar with many of the women in this book, there were plenty others of whom I had never heard. “This is a book for any girl who ever felt she didn’t fit in. You are not alone. You come from a long line of bold, strong, fearless women. Glory in that.” One interesting aspect of this book was that each chapter has a 1-5 color coded maturity rating as well as content warnings for violence, abuse, sex, rape, and self-harm. With so much discussion of trigger warnings, I appreciated that this was included. At the same time, it also highlighted that everyone’s definition of what counts as a trigger and the level of each trigger is entirely subjective. There were several stories that contained a trigger warning but the story (in my opinion) did not contain that content. I wondered if any of those occasions were due to excluded content, because these stories were definitely abbreviated highlights rather than all-inclusive stories. There were also times when I thought the number ratings should have been higher or lower. Like I said, it’s all subjective. But they were decent guidelines. Not that I think every book needs to jump on that bandwagon, but it was an interesting idea. And before you get worried, even the extreme violence, rape, and murder was mostly glossed over; the book does not go into gory detail on anything. One of the best things about this book is that it has excellent diversity in race, nationality, and time period. From ancient ages to modern day and from all over the world, this was a well-selected, diverse range of stories. The reasons these women were famous also varied from warriors to scholars and pretty much anything in-between. If you can’t find a single story in this book that interests you, well then you probably just hate everything, you Scrooge. The book is meticulously researched. I liked that the author calls out when there is a lack of substantiated information or if there are conflicting accounts of events. The sad fact is that much information is lost to the sands of time never to be recovered. They say well-behaved women rarely make history, but it seems the not well-behaved women struggle to make history as well. The theme of Western culture drowning out matriarchical societies, whitewashing, and marginalizing or erasing these women from history was seen again and again in this book. Many of these women’s stories also started with refusing forced marriages. The bravery so many of these women showed truly is astounding. According to the introduction, the idea for this book came about when the author was discussing with friends who would be the worst idea for a Disney Princess. He realized that his friends hadn’t heard of most of the women he was listing. So he got the idea for Rejected Princesses to bring awareness of forgotten women of history. Some of them were actually princesses; many were not. What they all have in common is that in one way or another, they fought for a life other than the one they were told to follow. And these were not all heroes. Some were of these women were pillars of morality, some were just trying to survive as best they could, and some were motivated by greed or revenge. But there is a common thread of tenacity. Some of my favorites included Noor Inayat Khan, The Nachthexen (who have long been one of my favorites. I am STILL waiting for someone to write a decent historical fiction about them!), Josefina Guerrero, Kurmanjan Datka, Marie Marvingt, and Mary Bowser. Now for the parts that I didn’t care for: Each chapter opened with a cartoon illustration. I know the author worked really hard on them, but I honestly hated the artistic style. They were cheesy cartoony illustrations whose proportions were just distorted enough to be uncomfortable to look at. By the second half of the book, I was mostly skipping over them, because I just could not stand how they looked. The author clearly put a lot of effort into them. Each illustration had notes about the figures wearing accurate period clothing and details from the story, but… the pictures were off-putting. I am also going to nitpick about one particular drawing wear he said he drew a cobra, but the snake included was clearly a king snake (Lampropeltis elapsoides which is not even close to the king cobra Ophiophagus Hannah. Another big problem was the tone of the narrative. The book was extremely self-aware and tried to be snarky and tongue-in-cheek (maybe like The Princess Bride), but he never struck the right balance. The result was an extremely flippant tone that wobbled between condescending and asinine at times. I don’t think that was Porath’s intent at all. He did seem to genuinely want to make people aware of these women’s accomplishments. But that flippant tone was off-putting. The humor felt over the top and campy and trying way too hard. There were some terrible attempts at modern slang in the dialogue (such as YOLO) that made the accounts sound much less reliable because obviously people in ancient times were not saying YOLO or other such modern drivel. Porath also often inserts his own opinions and judgements into the stories. While this book brings attention to some absurdly underrated women of history, it is by no means unbiased. And the entire thing is viewed through the lens of Modern Western views. I’m confused as to who is the intended audience for this book. It most definitely does not achieve that great for all ages! vibe. The cartoon drawings, flippant tone, and oversimplification of history would as well as the rating system would indicate that it is meant for younger audiences. But I’m not sure it fits that market either. Would I recommend it to most teenagers? Probably. Would I read it to my twelve-year-old niece? No way. Not just because of the mature content, but because I don’t think this would hold her attention. So rather than recommending this to an age group, I would recommend it to people who want to get an introduction to some redoubtable women of history. There were many women’s stories included. I think there were 99 chapters - some of which told the story of more than one woman. As interesting as they were, I would have much rather had half that number with more fleshed-out stories. Most of the stories are only two or three pages long, so these really are barebones stories. I can’t tell you how many times I turned the page and said, “That’s it?!” It felt like reading an abstract but being unable to access the full paper. And there were times when the narrative totally copped out and put vague statements like, “And then she had lots of adventures!” which made me groan in frustration. I came here for the adventures! Stop skipping over them! You get about as much information as you would on a chocolate frog card. It really is a collection of brief overviews of their lives rather than anything comprehensive or in depth. Which is a shame. Any one of these women deserves whole books written about them. Some of them have, but many never will. So Rejected Princesses has some big flaws, but I really appreciate what the author was trying to do. I enjoyed the content more than the execution of the writing. It will probably be appreciated by people who don’t read much nonfiction and just want an armchair peek into the lives of some great women. P.S. To any Historical Fiction writers out there, this book could serve as inspiration and a reminder that there are many time periods other than World War II! And if you still insist on writing about WWII, write about the Nachthexen please! RATING FACTORS: Ease of Reading: 4 Stars Writing Style: 2 Stars Level of Captivation: 4 Stars Attention to Details: 4 Stars Emotional Level: 3 Stars Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars

Full review now posted! I’m not the biggest fan of nonfiction, as I read to escape reality instead of learning more about it. I know, it’s a failing of mine. But every once in a while, I come across a nonfiction book that actually maintains my interest. This book was one of those. Jason Porath formerly worked in animation on such movies as Megamind, The Croods, and How to Train Your Dragon 2. This book is about women of myth or history who would never make the cut to become a Disney princess. Porath took it upon himself to gather information about these women through vigorous research, tell their stories in an interesting way, and illustrate them as they might appear if they were indeed Disney princesses. The illustrations are adorable, if somewhat disturbing when you take time to look at the small details and match them with the components of the woman’s story. Not all of these women were good women. In fact, some were downright evil. But the one thing they all have in common is that they were fascinating and stood out from other women of their times. One of the things I loved most about this book was the inclusion of so many women I had never heard of. Don’t get me wrong, there are women I have heard of, such as Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman, Josphine Baker, Mata Hari, Jezabel, and Elisabeth Bathory. Just in that list you can see some of the variety of women Porath included. But there were far more women whom I had never heard of, but whose stories were utterly enthralling. There are far too many to list, but some of my favorites were Hypatia, Princess Caraboo, and Olga of Kiev. Porath had a wonderful voice to his writing. No part of this book ever felt dry, despite the fact it was educational. There was lots of sass to be found in the prose, which I loved. I could just hear Porath telling these stories at a party or something. I know that addition of personal remarks won’t appeal to all readers, but it really worked for me. Porath’s voice is what kept this book feeling fun instead of erudite. An addition I really approved of was that of ratings on each of the stories. The stories were rated 1 through 5, with 1 being the cleanest and 5 having the most adult content. Each rating also included additional information about why the rating was given, such as violence, rape, etc. Porath also put the stories in order by rating, so all of the 1s are in the front of the book, followed by the 2s and so on. This system makes it much easier to read the more appropriate stories to kids, or to allow them to read up to a certain rating on their own. These are not fairy tales at all, but I think girls (and boys!) need to be exposed to strong women as early and as often as possible. Are these women all role model material? Assuredly not. But they were women who bucked societal norms and stood up for something, which is important for little girls to see. All in all, this book was wonderfully fun. I think it would be a perfect gift for a preteen girl who is a precocious reader, or for a woman with an interest in women in history. But if you do gift this to a girl, be aware of the adult content further into the book. Also, I also think this would be a wonderful resource for any author wanting to include strong, powerful women in their fiction. For more of my reviews, as well as my own fiction and thoughts on life, check out my blog, Celestial Musings.

An amazing book!!! Looks at neglected women through history, from different areas of the world. This book is not hard to read and some of these stories would be excellent to read to children, especially young girls to see the importance and fierceness of women within history. Would definitely recommend this to anyone.

This should be required reading. Well researched and written in a very personable manner. Knowing more about badass women is a necessity.